


The Undead Forest

by gatekat, KarlWolfemann



Series: An Inquisitor's Tale [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron
Genre: AD&D Inspired, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Death, Gen, Magic-Users, Religious Content, Undead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 15:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 50,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5168924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gatekat/pseuds/gatekat, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarlWolfemann/pseuds/KarlWolfemann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As an Inquisitor of Shelar, Felina's primary duty is to investigate unusual happenings to find and put down the undead. This is not one of her usual hunts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Elkin's Grove

**Author's Note:**

> kat = humanoid small felines (domestic and wild)  
> kantin = humanoid canines  
> xanith = humanoid big cats

The village of Elkin's Grove was a quiet, sleepy town on the edge of an ancient forest. Massive spires of elm and pine cast a long shadow over the town as the sun rose, the small church tolling its bell to welcome the dawn, always coming just a few moments later than in places without such an intimidating shade to the east. The most faithful in town, mostly the elderly and others whose working days were behind them, made their way to morning services while those with more material matters in mind took to the fields and shops, or joined the throng of lumberjacks who would make the daily trek to the woods further upstream. Talking or singing, a good half of the grown men in the village worked the forests nearer the mountains, leaving the nearby trees untouched.

Local legend said that the woods were home to the fae, and that a pact dating back to the Elkin family's great great grandfather drew a hard line between trees that could be sent down the river to the town's sawmill, and those that were protected under penalty of death. Adventurers sometimes came to town, promising to "save it from the faerie threat." They were always told firmly, though not always politely, to keep their noses to themselves and find some other town to bother. But it was no normal adventurer, no callow youth with sword and shield that had seen more testing than the arms that wielded them, that came to Elkin's Grove that early summer morning.

The feline woman who rode into town had already survived her first years on the road, and her distinctive armor of small horn scales, strung together in an overlapping pattern that left few openings for monstrous teeth or claws to slip through, bore the occasional chips and scars left from attempts to do just that. Her face was mostly obscured by the hood of her cloak, pulled up against the early morning chill. Her horse, a powerfully built dapple gray gelding, wore a thick layer of black leather studded with small plates of iron to protect it from similar threats, and carried saddlebags heavy with her gear. The gelding slowed to a walk as they approached the village palisades, one of the two guards outside taking a heavy ax in a wary, two-handed grip. His partner, an older kat with gray whiskers showing from under his weathered helmet of leather and iron, snorted at his comrade's caution.

"Welcome, stranger!" The black-and-brown tabby kat called out calmly as they approached. "Please take no offense, my partner's green as they come and a little quick to suspect the worst. Do ye have business here in Elkin's Bluff?"

"Yes," the female feline's voice still held the accent of a long education in a priesthood, but it had faded and roughened after years on the road and away from those that spoke like she once had regularly. "I'm on the trail of a wizard I've been charged with bringing to justice. Word of oddness unusual for the area makes it likely he is here, or at least passed through."

"Well, we haven't had anybody making trouble here lately," the guard shrugged. "Don't suppose you know the wizard's name, do you? Or what he might've told us he called himself coming into town? If he's a wanted man, not likely he gave us his proper name. We do try to keep track of who's coming and going though, the Sheriff insists."

"Your sheriff is wise," Felina nodded. "His name is Narin Longreach. I do not know what he may have called himself. This is the last image we have of him. It is several years old, though it should still be accurate enough," she offered as she held out a recording disk and activated it to project the image of a slender, rather ragged looking old tomkat with dark brown fur and thin, darker brown tabby markings.

"Well, if he came through it wasn't while I was working," the older Guard shrugged. "Don't recognize the name either, so he probably changed it. Easy enough to do. You recognize him, Owen?"

"Not really, but do you think he might've come through with that troupe of performers, Arok?" Owen asked. "Bunch of gypsies came into town two weeks ago, just after I signed on for the gate, and I swear half of them changed their names while they were still here. Think there was a wizard or two with them."

"If they had a wizard worth the name I'm the Queen's uncle," Arok snorted. "More like a card reader who wasn't making everything up as she went, and a couple performers who knew which end of a wand to hold. You'll get used to telling the fakers apart from the real wizards. At any rate, neither of us've seen him, but with wizards there's no telling for sure. Folks on the other side of the gate might know something too, but it's all up to who was on the shift when he came in, assuming he didn't fly over or poof himself past the gates during the night." He turned to a horn that seemed to feed through the wall to the other side and spoke into it, presumably for the guards on the other side.

"Unbolt the gates, we've got a rider coming in. One lass on horseback, armed and armored, goes by...." He trailed off, looking up at her for her name.

"Felina Feral," she told him.

"Felina Feral," he called into the horn.

There was a slightly muffled response from the other side before the post barring the gate shut was lifted. The two guards outside worked with those inside to open the large doors and let her through into the early morning activity of the village. She could smell the remnants of early breakfasts wafting around the village, but the strongest scents were coming from a public house down the road from the nearby church, where they were probably still cooking. A large, thick-furred black dog came running down the road towards her from the pub with a low, loud woof of warning and her mount, well trained for war and strangeness that it was, gave a warning huff and stamp of its hard-shod fore hoof in response.

Felina allowed them both their posturing and was rewarded when the large dog slowed down to a more sedate, less rushed pace as it drew near, clearly curious rather than threatening. With that her mount relaxed as well and she gave it a rub on the neck in reward. When the dog sniffed around them but made no attempt to hinder her, she guided the gelding to the public house and tied him up very loosely outside. Really, she did little more than drape the reins through the hitching post in front. It was all Thunderclap needed to know he was to stay there unless someone tried to mount him or steal something from what he carried.

"Good boy," she gave the dapple gray an affectionate rub on the nose, offered him a handful of sweet grain from the saddlebag since this town would be easy to resupply in, and headed inside as she pulled her cowl back.

Inside the crowd was fairly small, but seemed friendly enough. At this point it was mostly made up of those who could afford to get up later; shop owners who wouldn't be doing much business until later in the day, a group of elderly toms in one corner, chatting as they rolled the bones, a few guards at the bar getting off the night shift. The smell of ale, eggs, fish, and richly spiced fennel sausage wafted out from the back kitchen as the door opened to reveal a towering behemoth of a xanith woman, busty and red-furred, with a tray on one hand that was heaped with food and a trio of tankards in the other hand that she deftly laid out in front of the three guards at the bar.

"Drink up boys!" She grinned, starting to pass out plates of hot food. "And Kip just came in with fresh trout, so let your friends know on the way home."

"I'll take some o' that, Madge!" One of the elderly gamblers shouted up to the bar, tossing the pig knuckles in his paw and cheering as they came up. "And on these old codgers' bills!" He grinned as the rest of the table groaned and tossed in their small bets.

"Coming right up," Madge laughed, turning her attention to Felina. "Welcome to the Nixie's Nest, stranger. Care for some breakfast after a long ride?"

"Yes," she gave a polite nod to the female that made even her look delicate. "It's been too long since I've had a good hot meal, and double on the eggs, please."

"I'll have it up for you in a shake," Madge nodded cheerfully. "And a tankard to wash the dust out of your throat before that. Will you be needing a room tonight?"

"I don't know yet," Felina admitted. The xanith woman nodded and disappeared back into the kitchen, shouting orders to her children and employees, and leaving a few moments for relatively private conversation.

Felina headed for the bar and the guards coming off duty. "Hello. Night shift at the gate?"

"We just got off patrol," the guard nearest her, a reasonably young, well-built tom confirmed for her. He wasn't wearing his helmet any more, but the fact that he was wearing a full suit of light mail instead of one cobbled together out of various pieces over the years marked him as probably being the patrol's sergeant. "Quiet night, for the most part. You picked a good time to come to town though, if you're any good with that," he told her, indicating the broad-mouthed pistol at her belt. "We just got finished posting bounties for the Sheriff; the Elkins put up a pouch of silver on any proof of the monsters the men've been seeing in the woods."

"I'm good with it and I'll check out the listings," she smiled at him. "By any chance is this kat among them, or anyone you've seen?" she brought out the recording disk to show them her target's image.

"Not among the bounties, but I think I recognize him... isn't that the fellow who came through a few weeks back, had that fight with Whiteeye?" He asked, looking over his shoulder at his partners.

"Could be," one of them agreed between bites of his sausage. He washed down his mouthful with a swig of ale just as Madge brought out Felina's tankard. "If he was he's long gone though, we ran him out of town after that. Whiteeye might be blind, but we take her at her word when she says somebody's trouble. The guy we ran out was a calico though."

"The muzzle and ears, not the markings," the Sergeant countered. "He had that scar," he explained, indicating the mark, "and the notch in his left ear. Has a fresh set of tooth marks in it now too, after one of the kits jumped him," he grinned. "Sharp teeth, that one, and a good eye for where to bite. Wouldn't be surprised if she starts hunting for real soon."

"So why are you after him?" The third guard asked, still looking at the image. It seemed he was just quiet though, not slow. "Not just because he's rude."

"He's a wizard I've been charged to bring to justice," Felina explained. "By any chance did the reports of monsters and other unusual strangeness start about the time you ran him out of town?"

The trio became much more serious as all three of them put the pieces together at about the same time.

"About a week later," the Sergeant told her. "We get stories all the time, but these were different. Usually it's just white stags and faerie lovers, sometimes a talking tree or even a unicorn, but these were reports of deer with pieces missing, or wolves without their jaws, trees that had been healthy not the day before withered and diseased. Explains why the kit thought he tasted bad though." He leaned in close, glancing over at the old kats, who'd suddenly taken an interest in the change in tone. "We thought he was just some pervert with an eye for the kits when we ran him out. Enchanter?"

"Necromancer," she said very quietly after a drink of the weak ale. "Those monsters are likely undead, and very real. Even if it's not the wizard I'm after, undead are bad news and something I'm charged with dealing with when I find it."

"You'll have more than just the dead to deal with, if you go in there," he said solemnly. "We call it the Faewood for a reason, after all. But Whiteeye could help you with that... or Kip, if Madge'll stop sending her out for fish," he added, cheering up a bit as the xanith came out with two platters of food, laying one out for Felina heaped high with scrambled eggs, a hearty sausage and one of the trout filets, and potatoes that had been fried up after the sausage.

"And what business is it of yours if I keep my wife busy during the day?" She challenged him playfully. "Keeps the likes of your hands off of her!"

"Ah, Madge, you know I've only got eyes for you and the Missus, and for you it's to make sure I can duck!"

His friends rolled their eyes at the apparently old joke, and Madge took a playful swing at him on her way to deliver the other tray of fish.

"Seriously though, Kip would be the one to talk to. She won't be your guide into the woods, but she knows how to set things right so you won't be faerie-led while you're exploring," he continued once she was on her way. "And Whiteeye always has charms and trinkets you can use to trade with any fae you meet. Though if you're dealing with the new beasties, I imagine they'd be happy enough to have them gone. Surprised he managed to get far enough in there to do any real harm, honestly."

"Do you think he might be coming back?" The third guard asked. "We've all got family in the graveyard. It's best if they stay there."

"I'll talk to the Sheriff about posting an extra guard out there," the Sergeant nodded. "Just until we know for sure."

Felina took it all in with a serious nod. "I've worked in enchanted woods before. Not my preferred hunting ground, but I've been trained. I'll talk to Whiteeye and Kip before I head out. I'd like to talk to some of the woodsmen and hunters who've made the unusual claims. They often know things they don't realize they know." She shifted focus to the third guard. "I can make no promises, however his pattern has been to move on quickly once an area evicts him or there is sign I've arrived. I doubt he'll be back. It's dangerous for him here now."

"Most of the woodsmen won't be back until closer to sundown, but Vesker's the one you'll want to talk with first," the Sergeant told her " _After_ you've eaten and given it some time to settle; he's the town's tanner as well as a hunter, and he's the one who brought back the first stories about the deer and trees. Smoke was fouler than usual out of his place the next day at that."

Felina wrinkled her nose as she ate, just imagining the stench. Tanners and dyers were required to live far from towns for livability reasons and every time she came close to one she was reminded why. They earned an exceptional income for their smelly misery and isolation, but it wasn't a choice she would have made.

"Anybody in town can tell you where to find Mother Whiteeye," he continued, "just be ready for the kits to come asking you all manner of questions about your adventures. And you won't have any trouble making Kip out. Just look for the giant river otter that's walking around like a kat. She's the nixie who made this her nest." the Sergeant continued.

"Are there any other citizens I might be surprised by?" Felina asked carefully. "I'm not here to stir up trouble with anyone that's welcome here."

"She's the main one, but don't be worried if you spy some brownies making their way around town ... they look like all kinds of critters, but they're usually very short, and busy doing something. They'll surprise you, but not cause any trouble, unless you see one wearing a bright red hat," he explained. "If you do, call the guards and keep an eye on him. We try not to have to get into fights with the fellows, but the ones with red caps can be violent little bastards. Still, we rarely have trouble with them, particularly during the day. We'll send a rider out to meet the woodsmen and let them know somebody's willing to listen to their stories. Nothing that'll get them worried, but they'll be ready to talk to you tonight then, while they're still sober."

"Thank you. I'll be ready to speak with them, so they won't need to hold off on their evening entertainment for long," Felina nodded after a long drink of the ale. "You're lucky to have such a good cook in the public house," she added when Madge was within hearing. "More often than not it's just gruel and a joint of meat. You've got a treasure here."

"That we do," the sergeant smiled fondly. "Kip's been keeping the Nixie up for generations, but Madge really brought a new touch to it when she married into the business. Good cook, good friend, and happy to drink anybody in town under the table."

"Except for the new guy," the second guard added, taking the opening to go back to the original topic as he rolled his eyes. "Careful about what he says when you talk to him. He's new to town. Tabby, gold and orange, and built like somebody stacked an anvil on legs. Good arms, and he always manages to hit what he's aiming at when he's swinging an ax, but Elar knows how. He's got more liquor in him than blood, most of the time."

"Oof, he's right about taking what that kat says with a grain of salt," the Sergeant agreed. "Calls himself Chance, and it's a well picked name. Always had tall tales before, but his stories about the trees moving around? That's a new one on us, and almost got him sent packing. He'd be working the mill until he sobered up if anybody trusted him not to cut his own head off."

"I'll take it with care, though in some fae woods there are tree creatures. A strong mage can animate even normal ones," Felina hummed thoughtfully. "It's rare, but I've seen such things. They always have an explanation though. Usually a wizard."

"Likely as anything else," he agreed. "Would you like one of us to send word to the Sheriff to talk to you? With who you're hunting, I doubt you're just a bounty hunter."

"Inquisitor of the Cowl," she nodded, answering easily. Just because she didn't often wear her Sigil of Shelar's Hunters easily visible didn't mean she was hiding why and what she was. "Yes, I would appreciate that," she added between bites of food better than she'd had in weeks. She was a passable field cook, it qualified as a survival skill when you often traveled alone, but she hadn't had eggs since the last town and sausage this good in months. "I appreciate your help as well."

"Most welcome. We'll be on our way, and let you enjoy your breakfast. The Sheriff will be around some time later to give you any information we couldn't," he promised her.

"I'll be around here," she said as they left, then tucked into her breakfast until Madge came out. She waved the innkeeper over. "I will be needing a room for the night, and a stall for my horse."

* * *

Felina sighed deeply as she let the aches of riding soak away into the hot water of the town bath. The water, she'd been told, was pumped in from the river and heated with an enchanted boiler the Elkins had purchased in the early days, when Whiteeye's grandmother had sold the family on the idea that being able to soak injured legs and arms would get the woodsmen back to work faster. That the rest of the town benefited, particularly the line of elderly wise women, was a handy perk.

It also meant that the bathhouse was practically free, merely a copper slip for an hour's soak, with extra benefits on offer. Felina hadn't decided if she'd take advantage of any of them yet; just soaking felt too good, letting the road dust float out of her fur and muscles she'd gotten used to being sore finally stop hurting for a while. There weren't any other customers in the bath with her at the moment though Zenai, one of the two attendants, was seeing to a customer in a side room, an elderly shekat who'd come in shortly before Felina had, albeit much more slowly.

"All right Mary, if you'll just let me help you down, we'll get you in to soak," the attendant, a handsome chocolate tom with a friendly smile and a gentle aura about him, spoke to his patient as he finished up her massage. "Mind that leg of yours."

"I'll mind it just fine!" She snapped at him, though a sharp intake of breath as he helped her down and quickly put a cane in her hand said it was as much out of pain as poor temper. "Not as swollen today, was it?"

"Actually, it wasn't," he said approvingly. "We've got another customer in the bath today, if you'd like something to take in with you?"

"Bah, they won't have anything I haven't seen," Mary scoffed, waving him off and starting out towards the tub slowly. "Let 'em see what they've got to look forward to if they don't get themselves killed out chopping wood! Teach 'em t'be more careful with the ax."

"It's not one of the woodsmen, Mary," Zenai explained patiently. "It's a traveler."

"Nothing to be afraid of then," Mary stated confidently. She was right too; for a kat who had to be a grandmother by now, if not great-grandmother or more, she'd aged gracefully. Her legs were a bit swollen with edema, her shoulders slightly stooped, but she still moved with a sort of patient, if aching, grace. Her once-gray fur had paled to a striking shade of silver, her somewhat-too-slim body still had enough tone that her fur didn't seem to be drooping off of her like it did so many other kats who reached her age, and she still looked to have all of her own teeth.

"Greetings elder," Felina spoke politely when Mary came close enough for it. "The water is wonderfully warm."

"It always is," she smiled, accepting Zenai's help to lower herself into the water with a groan to match Felina's from when she'd first sat down. "Ooh... these old bones always appreciate it too. My name's Mary Carver, my husband and I've been carpenters in town longer than you've been alive, most likely." She looked at Felina and politely lowered her head when she noticed the disk of ebony with silver droplets set into it on a leather thong around Felina's neck. "And yourself, Inquisitor?"

"Felina Feral," she smiled, her body still relaxed, no more ashamed of her looks, scars and all, than the elder. "Yes, I expect you were an adult well before I was born, even if I am not that young anymore."

Mary nodded. "What brings you to Elkin's Grove?"

"The unusual strangeness in the fae woods," Felina answered easily. "The monsters that should not be there are deserving of investigation, and if the stories are true, of removal."

"Well, it's good that somebody's going to look into it," Mary nodded. "We didn't take it that seriously at first, but we just keep hearing more stories. Nothing as wild as when I was younger, but Nortan help us, I'd rather it stay that way! Band of goblins set up in the woods, started gathering an army to take over the town." She tsked and shook her head. "Little blasphemers attacked on Souling Night, of all nights! No, I'd much prefer the Faewood strangeness stays where it belongs. I'm getting far too old to be taking carving knives to."

Felina's growl was soft and upset, even as she quickly contained it. "I'm glad they failed. The townsfolk saw them off?"

"Aye... goblins might be vicious little bastards, but apparently they didn't think through what would happen if you threatened kits in a village full of people who've been using axes since they could lift them," she chuckled grimly. "Especially when our Priestess at the time, Mater Althea, could call the Dawnfire. She's long since passed, she was ancient even when that happened, but she saw many a threat to this town go ahead of her."

"I expect so. Such magic is very useful against all kinds of enemies," Felina said. Where this subject came in, she had no issues with those of the opposing church. She didn't like them for the goddess they chose to follow, but she was not so much the fanatic that she'd wish one failure when protecting good people. "Is your current Dawnbringer?"

"He's good enough to handle what we have to, for the most part, but we lean more on Mother Whiteeye... not part of the faith, though I know that confuses a lot of people who don't know her," Mary explained. "Annoys the Church no end, but there's really nobody in town who'll call her anything else. Not honestly sure _who_ she worships, to be honest. Her family's always been a little odd that way, very private. But don't dare put the kits in danger when she's around, unless you _like_ the idea of being turned into a newt or somesuch."

Felina chuckled. "Whoever she serves, she does right by the community. That's long been the important thing. That she's a kitten-protector is even better. Have the fae been trouble often?"

"Oh, not most of them," she said, waving an aged hand dismissively. "They usually keep to themselves, as long as we do the same. Some of the brownies and sprites like to come play pranks during the winter, just to keep some fun in life, but we enjoy that as much as they do most of the time. No, we're usually at peace with them, except for the occasional one that goes a bit mad." She shivered at some long-held memory, shaking her head as if to deny it the power to trouble her now. "What about yourself? I'm sure you've some interesting stories to tell of your travels."

"Mostly horror stories," Felina warned. "Like most Inquisitors, my life fluctuates between intense danger and long stretches of dull travel and investigation. I'd say one of my more amusing involved the town fool when I was young and stationed in a town near the church where I trained. The first duty of any Inquisitor is to oversee all deaths and burials in an area to decrease the odds of them coming back. Once you're deemed to have the combat and investigative skills you're allowed to travel. Well, One-Eyed Jack wasn't often a drunk, but he didn't have much of a mind. Sweet tom most of the time, but when he got on a bender he remembered he had parts that never saw use." She chuckled at the memories. "He tried to sing me to his bed."

"Ho, I'll bet that was rough," Mary winced. "Could he at least sing?"

"Not well," Felina chuckled. "He meant well enough, but there were reasons those parts didn't see much use. Though it might have helped if he'd been able to think of _anything_ to sing besides 'Take Me Home to your Mother!'"

"Ah!" Mary laughed. "Toms. Half the time they're helpless, the other half they're hopeless! Sometimes I worry about what my husband'll do if I pass on before him. His mind's still sharp, but he never was much for running a house."

"Hopefully you have a daughter or granddaughter to keep an eye on him," Felina chuckled.

"Oh, we do, though they're busy enough with their own husbands and kin." Mary shifted to look at Felina a bit more directly before she continued. "Inquisitor, how much do they teach you about what comes after?"

"More than most, since it's our job to see spirits to their rest," Felina replied. "Are you worried for someone, elder?"

"I'm more... wondering what's waiting for me," Mary explained. "It's not that I don't believe there's a place for us, I'm not a Denier, but... I suppose I'm just not as thrilled about having to take eternity for granted, now that I'm that much closer to it."

"Unless you have lead an exceptional life in service to or against a god, or otherwise drawn enough attention to yourself that more than one wants you enough to contest your destination, it is exceptionally rare for someone not to go to the after in the realm of the god they associated most closely with in life." Felina explained smoothly. "It takes a great deal to create the kind of interest required for a contest, but they do happen even to normal folk. The harsher and more hate-filled a person is towards others in life, both people and animals, the more likely they are to earn time in the realm of another god."

"Is it necessarily the one whose church you have been to most?" Mary asked her. "We only have Elar's church here, the village isn't large enough to support another, outside of Mother Whiteeye. But I've always been one to work with my own paws. Even when I was carrying my kits I wanted to keep working," she chuckled slightly. "That's always sounded more like one meant for Fahik's workshop than the Gardens, but then there's my family that's passed on before, or will be coming after."

"If you are being rewarded, rather than punished, you are likely to be sent to where you feel most at home," Felina said carefully. "The Garden and the Workshop are not always mutually exclusive. Even the mortal realm is accessible in a way if you want to watch your loved ones enough. Those gods who reward people know that given time, a soul will grow distant from relatives that are not in their realm, and it causes less strife if they allow visits until that time." She went silent for a lingering moment. "Think of it as going to live in a city many weeks travel away. If you have the means, at first you probably visit once a year, maybe more often. As you settle into your new life, it is likely to be every other year, then every five, until you only visit when something very significant happens. From what both gods and spirits have told us, the after is not so different."

"That makes sense," Mary smiled softly. "And it seems... reassuring, I suppose. To know that just because one is faithful to a different power, it doesn't mean being disloyal to your kin. Do you... have you been taught anything of what happens to Deniers? I have known one, in the past. I wonder if he will have learned the truth now."

"Little is said of it, but two things I know are true. Some come back as undead. Most are never heard from again. I believe that most who realize the truth in those first moments and were only Deniers out of being hurt or lost in life rather than some kind of malice, are allowed to repent. I do not doubt that they have demands made of them in some form, but very few gods are vindictive on the level of denying a soul the chance to make good on new knowledge. We are all mortal. We are all flawed. It takes a cruel heart to show someone the truth and never allow them to make use of that knowledge." Felina said with a soft sound. "I feel sorry for them, especially those who I can see are good people who have been terribly harmed by their fellows to the point where they can no longer believe that the gods are real despite the evidence around them."

"Thank you," Mary nodded.

Felina gave her a warm smile despite the harshness of her features, both by nature and experience. "I'm glad the truths I know, and what I understand can give others comfort. It's not often it happens."

"You have today, though I suppose we should probably each get back to the rest of our days fairly soon; would you like some help getting the rest of the road dust out of your fur?" She offered.

"That would be wonderful," she smiled warmly and shifted to offer her back to the elder. "I've been told I give as good as I receive, if you'd like."

* * *

Felina was just getting out of the bathhouse, feeling truly clean for the first time in weeks. She bathed more often than most, to be honest, but that was part and parcel of the job. When a kat spent as much time as she did sternum-deep in creatures that were supposed to be dead in the first place, more traditional means of cleaning up just did _not_ appeal.

"My men told me I could probably find you here Inquisitor," a deep, loud voice rumbled nearby as she was sliding the last of her knives into a boot. A glance revealed the owner of the voice, a lean, wiry scarecrow of a tomkat with midnight-black fur and long, craggy features. His badge marked him as the sheriff, and the brace of pistols he wore suggested that he'd earned the position. It was difficult to afford one weapon so expensive without a windfall, let alone three of them and a matching musket strapped to his back. "Sheriff Longclaw," he introduced himself, offering her a hand in welcome that was slightly at odds with his just-too-loud voice, "though most around here call me Brimstone. Is now a good time to speak?"

"Yes, sheriff," Felina raised her voice more than she usually did, well aware of what gunfire did to one's hearing. If he was the fan he appeared to be, the kat was likely half deaf by now.

"Let's go back to my office," he told her, jerking his head in its general direction. "Less bother for everyone else in town that way."

Felina nodded and walked with him to the old, well-fortified building and into the kat's office. He leaned his musket up against the wall and took a seat, picking up a listening trumpet and leaning his elbow on the table so he could hold it better.

"Sorry for the hassle with this, but I'm still trying to save up to get a permanent solution. Didn't think to start using plugs during target practice until after I'd been damn fool enough not to recognize a hangfire. Managed not to blow my head off, but I can barely hear a thing out of this side," he admitted.

"It's good that you survived at least," she said smoothly, her voice modulating for the new conditions. "Is there a mage in the area that can work such magic?"

"I'm working with one from the city," he explained. "The Elkins make a point of keeping up to date on all the priests and wizards within a month's hard ride who can reattach a missing limb for a price, and one of them is skilled enough a mage to put together a set of plugs that will only muffle the sound of gunfire. It's just expensive work. Of course, that's not what brought you here; I understand you're looking for that kat we ran out of town."

"I am," she nodded. "And now that I've heard the second hand accounts of the unusual monsters since his departure, I'm looking into those too. Cleaning out undead are among my duties as well."

" _Very_ glad to hear it," he smiled grimly. "My men are good about handling problems in town. Drunks Madge doesn't want to kick out herself, the occasional thief, a troll once that was drunk on faewine, but even that was more a matter of scaring it back into the forest than actually fighting it. The undead... that's something I'd rather handle with men I know are up for it. Or at least more men than myself who are up for it; if you wanted to take a guard or two in with you, I wouldn't mind them getting a chance to learn how to really fight."

"The help is definitely welcome, for those eager to learn," Felina smiled at him. "Your share of the reward will help get your plugs sooner as well. How are you with a mace?"

"Passable, though I'm actually better at flipping these around and using them," he chuckled, indicating the pistols. "Reloading is a luxury I don't always have, but a hot gun barrel or butt to the head is usually pretty effective. Most of my men train with clubs, and to subdue rather than kill, but they're good enough with them. You might also want to talk to Furlong, the drunk they told you about earlier. He's a good fighter, and I don't think his stories are quite as exaggerated as most others in town do. Strong as an ox at that; familiar with the caber toss?"

"Tossing a tree?" she asked to make sure she was thinking of the same thing he was. "I've heard of it, but never seen an event. As for the gun barrels, they won't work well on an undead wolf or person. If you can't completely shatter the head with one strike, it's not going to be all that effective. Low level undead have no brain to damage to knock them out. The only effective method is crushing the entire skull or doing enough bodily damage that they can't move anymore. Guns aren't useful without enchantment, and swords aren't much better. It's a very different skill set, but on the up side, they are completely mindless and generally quite slow and obvious in their movements."

"The butts then," he nodded. "Just as effective as your mace, if you get a good swing behind them and have them properly weighted. There's a bit of a trick to it; I'll have to show you some time if we get the chance. But yes, that's pretty much what the caber toss is. Take a good big log and throw it as far as you can. Well, Furlong dethroned the reigning champ earlier this year, and he landed it end-in at that, which either makes him damned lucky or damned good. So between the three of us and a couple of my more experienced guards, we'd probably have a pretty solid team going in to deal with the situation. Not that I'd want to be gone too long, just for the town's sake, but I've got good backup for a few days, as long as nothing goes completely off while I'm gone. Sound workable to you?"

"Quite workable. I'm used to hunting without backup, so any days you join me will be welcome," she nodded. "I'll ask Furlong if he wants to join us, and I would definitely appreciate some tips on using my pistols for more than a ranged attack. For armor, I generally recommend staying away from simple hardened leather, padded or paper. Undead claws are remarkably good at slicing through it when their living counterparts can't. That said, it's much better than clothing if you don't have access to bone or reinforced leather."

"Good to keep in mind; I'll make sure they're properly equipped," he promised. "I've got an old mail shirt that should do the job for myself. Is it true that the living can be turned by a wound?"

"Not the kind we're looking at," she explained carefully. "That is a very specialized ability, rare even among the intelligent undead. Ghouls are the primary kind that can do it, but first you have to die of the disease that infected you. That doesn't even require magic to cure, though magic definitely makes recovery quicker. Even among those who can turn one more directly, the victim must die first and there are ways to prevent them from rising after death."

"Glad to hear it," he said, visibly relaxing slightly. "I'll admit, it's the main reason I haven't taken anybody into the woods yet to investigate this myself. I haven't told anybody else this, but there was a body brought in, recently. A wolf that came after our tanner; fortunately, it wasn't able to do much damage with most of its jaws missing. Killing the thing was probably a mercy, even if it was already dead. But that's why I pressured the Elkins to put up the bounty for more information. Would it do you any good to see what's left of it?"

"Absolutely," her body straitened with real interest. "I should be able to tell if it was deliberately created, or was a side effect of more natural processes. I will be able to confirm that it was a zombie, as opposed to something nastier. That is all very valuable information to have before a hunt. Where is it?"

"Out back, where I mix my powder," he said, standing up to lead her through. "I try to keep that outside, for obvious reasons, but the sulfur deadens the thing's stink and keeps most people away. I'll warn you, it was still twitching when I put it out there, and it's already been skinned."

"Undead are like that," Felina said grimly as she followed him. "Where is the hide?"

"I've got it with the body. He was going to try tanning it, but said it didn't feel right once he got it off. Can't blame him, having carried it. I was planning on burning both once I knew they'd served their purposes." She followed him to where the reek of sulfur and other reagents filled the air. If he spent as much time back here as she expected, it explained his nickname around the town. Still, it was a reasonably well-equipped little workshop, complete with a small smelter and molds for bullets. The sort of setup that she normally only saw at one of her order's armories.

"Impressive," she didn't conceal her appreciation of the effort he put into his firearms. "Did you forge your own weapons as well?"

"Only the musket; the pistols came from highwaymen who didn't need them anymore. Here's the hide," he said, opening up a cupboard and pulling out the fur. It was cleaned, but not much more than that. What she hadn't been prepared for, even after having fought the undead for as long as she had, was that it would still feel like there was life force in the skin, somehow.

It caused a shiver as she tried to settle her fur. "Burning the body is a good plan, but my church will pay good silver for the hide. Our enchanters know how to take an undead hide and make it into armor that defends against undead. If that's not a trouble you want to go through, burning it as well is a good idea."

"It's Vesker's property, so I'll ask him, but I doubt he'll object. As for the body, that's in here," he explained, picking up a shovel and indicating a shallow grave that was wriggling slightly. "These things don't heal if you leave them be, do they?" He asked her.

"Not normally," she promised him, putting her hand on her mace all the same. 'Not normally' was usually poor odds to count on, in her experience.

The Sheriff nodded and started to unearth the body. Before long he'd exposed it, the thin layer of dirt and rocks mostly meant to conceal the grisly sight. And grisly it was, muscles and tendons exposed, broken bones sticking out from under the meat, thin black liquid dripping from the marrow and remaining blood vessels. A bit of the ichor squirted out as it tried to move a broken leg towards her, responding naturally to the sensation of natural life nearby.

It was harmless now, broken to the point where it couldn't move, but that didn't keep it from trying.

A brief word of magic, and Felina's eyes glowed a pale green, seeking out the telltale signs of the magic that animated the abomination. She could watch the inky fluid coursing through its body, serving as a blasphemous substitute for true blood, but there were none of the signs of magic with intent, with malice.

This thing was a zombie, nothing more. But at the same time, it had animated naturally ... something that almost never happened with animals in her studies. It was rare that an animal's soul wished to stay in the world badly enough to cling to its broken flesh so tenaciously, rarer still for it to happen more than once. And yet, the stories indicated that there were _many_ more waiting for her in the woods, as well as blighted trees. It pointed to one terrifying prospect.

That Narin had somehow discovered a way to create a poison that would do the same thing as his magic. Such a thing was rumored to exist, but the closest that the Order had ever found was a mind-numbing one, not one that made true zombies. Crossing that line, if he could make enough of it, could turn villages.

"There is good news and very bad news," Felina said as she focused on Longclaw. "It is naturally animated. There was no direct intent or malice behind its continuation."

"And the bad news?" he asked as he began to bury it again.

"That it's naturally animated," Felina said grimly. "That simply does not happen with animals. It takes an intense desire to continue on for a spirit to animate its flesh. We are dealing with something there are no records of and all my order's research says is impossible."

"Should I have a rider start for town to take a message to them?" He asked her very seriously. "We may need to borrow your horse, if it's not a one-rider animal; I imagine it's faster than most around here, being used to riding with armor."

"He's not, though he does require a skilled rider to keep him from heading directly for the nearest Order outpost. That's their training, if their rider is incapacitated, or isn't riding them. It's meant to be an alert to the Order that an Inquisitor has fallen. Thunderclap's smart though, and he'll listen if I tell him to obey a new rider for a time and return to me," Felina said. She wasn't fond of the idea, but the sheriff was correct, and going into the forest wasn't the best place for the warhorse. It wasn't as if he wouldn't go to the last Order outpost they'd visited if she didn't return in good time. "The worst that'll happen is that your rider will end up in at the Temple in Moon Bay five days hard ride from here and explain to them."

"That's not much farther than where I'd been thinking of sending the message in the first place," the Sheriff mused. "I'd been thinking the Temple of Sorrows in Calistis; the Elkins have a steady, safe path there to ship lumber, so the ride would be a day faster and have less chances of going poorly. But if the temple in Moon Bay would be better equipped to handle this, that might be a better choice in the first place. I'm just thinking that if this is something your Order is unfamiliar with... well, I have the utmost faith in your abilities," he said almost apologetically, "but I certainly wouldn't object to having another priest along, and I don't want to take the Father out of town when there's a chance something could go wrong without me here to deal with it."

"When dealing with something this unknown, I'll welcome the backup from both locals and the Order," Felina gave a grim smile. "I understand what you mean. Moon Bay has better resources for this situation. I know some of those stationed there would be a real asset. Those who know more of magic and alchemy than I do, and fighters ready to ride."

"I'll prepare a formal request for aid," the Sheriff nodded, taking the shovel and driving it through the still-twitching remains, an instinctive attempt to finish what was clearly an incomplete job of killing it. "We see what we can learn until they get here, or wait for them before we move out?" He asked her, deferring to her superior expertise.

"I'd like to talk to everyone who believes they've seen something strange, rest tonight and find out what we can learn without going too deeply into the faewoods. The more we can tell backup when it arrives the faster we can deal with whatever's happening," she said as she helped him bury the remains.

* * *

With the mangled wolf buried once more, the sheriff wrote up his request while Felina spoke to the tanner, paid him for the zombie wolf's hide and went to meet Sheriff Longclaw at the inn where Thunderclap was stabled. They chatted about little things while Felina finished putting a simple saddle borrowed from a local and the rider walked into the stable to join them.

"He's a lovely beast," the older adolescent, a black-on-gray tom wearing a weather-beaten cloak that was about a size too large for him, offered a whistle of appreciation as he ran his eyes over the dapple-gray gelding. "Is it safe for me to come closer just now? I know some battle-trained horses can be possessive."

"He's friendly towards the living. It's just the undead, or those who have actually attacked his rider or cargo that need to worry about him," Felina promised with a smile. "What's your name?"

"Rogan," he said, stepping up and reaching up to let the horse get his scent, careful to stay in his line of sight the whole time. "That's a good boy," he said reassuringly, slowly moving his hand to stroke Thunderclap's mane. "I'll take good care of you for your rider," he promised.

"His family takes care of the Elkin stables," Longclaw explained. "Rog's been riding since he could hold himself upright. He's been the town's unofficial messenger since winter before last."

"Somebody had to get through to the capitol," Rogan shrugged slightly. "Just like this time, but without having to slog through an ice storm."

"Much nicer weather this time," Felina nodded as she finished tacking up. "This is Thunderclap. He knows the way to Moon Bay and his training is to go there without stopping for much more than water. If you can eat and sleep while he moves, it's a good thing. If not, he will stop and stay. Just make sure to take the saddle off and secure the reins to something solid. If something's crazy enough to attack, just hold on," she gave a chuckle. "I just went through that route, so there's not much that's likely to cross you."

"Hopefully not," he agreed. "But I'll be taking my bow along just in case, along with supplies." He patted a light crossbow at his hip, one that as well suited for shooting from horseback as such a weapon could be, and an elaborate quiver of bolts and other sundries he might need in a hurry. "Is there anybody in particular I should try to deliver the message to, or should know to be wary of?"

"No, Moon Bay isn't of special importance to me. You're riding to one of our fortresses. A couple knights will ride out to greet you as soon as you're within visual range. They will be under Shelar's banner. Tell them what's happening, show them both letters," she pulled one from her pocket and handed it over. "Be polite and you'll be fine. Riding in on Thunderclap will make them less wary of you than a general mount would, but it's the letters that will get you the furthest fastest. Even a fortress's first duty is to respond to calls for help. Unless you or he's injured during your ride there, you'll be expected to ride Thunderclap back with those who come. Expect a day and night of rest while the response is organized, but they'll tell you how much down time you'll have." She paused, thinking over everything she should tell him. "The temple will give you room and board while you're there, provisions for the ride back and a few coins for your time. They'll care for Thunderclap as well."

"I'll keep it in mind," he nodded, putting the letter along with the other one in a message pouch on his hip. "Thank you for trusting me with this, Inquisitor, Sheriff," he said respectfully to the both of them before mounting Thunderclap with enviable ease. "You won't regret it."

The warhorse snorted and shifted under the much lighter weight than he was accustomed to, both rider and lack of armor and equipment. Felina smiled and rubbed his face reassuringly. "Thunderclap. Message."

The dapple gray's ears perked up and he snorted with a nod of his head. As soon as she stepped out of the way he lunged forward into a fast canter for his build.

"He'll settle soon!" Felina called after them, dust kicking up into the air behind the horse as Rogan adjusted and sped him up to a solid trot that could carry the two of them for hours.

"Now that that's settled, I think you needed to talk to Mother Whiteeye, and I've got arrangements to make for the hunt," Longclaw explained, indicating the main road to the other end of town. "It's not a long walk; she's set up right inside the gates. Just keep an eye out for play-hunting kits, though they don't usually give strangers any trouble."

A few minutes walk proved the Sheriff right; most of the kits were pretty easy to spot, tails twitching just outside of the bushes they were using for cover, or dangling just a little two low out of a tree. Felina smiled slightly, remembering her own version of the game in her youth. It had involved a lot more play-fighting than play-stalking, but that was part and parcel of growing up in an Inquisitor family. Still, she didn't tip off the older child running an errand that they were about to be pounced, and was rewarded by getting to see the distracted tom being pounced on by a kitten who was probably his little brother, to judge by their similarities. The two laughed and tussled for a bit, the rest of the 'pride' rushing out and joining in the pile of fur and giggles before the bigger tom extracted himself and started back off on his errand with a hug for his kid brother.

The kittens noticed her almost immediately after their 'prey' was gone; some of them scrambled back under cover with the awkward speed only toddlers could manage, while others stood and stared, entranced by the sight of a stranger dressed like one of the guards. As she drew closer, one of them broke off and ran down the road, presumably to let somebody know she was coming.

"Are you a new guard?" One of the kittens, a calico she-kat with a bright white patch over her eye asked as Felina drew closer, looking at her mace and the dark studded leather Felina had chosen to wear instead of her heavier bone on leather suit.

"No, I'm a traveling warrior," Felina smiled down at the kit and shifted her Sigil of Shelar's Hunters so the kit looked at the disk of ebony with silver tears in it. "This says I'm an Inquisitor of the Cowl. We are priest-warriors of Shelar who stop undead threats and ensure that souls are allowed to rest in peace."

She could see the gears turning in the kit's head as she reached up to touch the symbol, putting together the ideas she understood and trying to make the others fit.

"So, like a knight?" She asked, cocking her head. "But you fight the diggers instead of dragons, so you don't need the big armor?" Her eyes got really big as she put that together, looking towards the church and attached graveyard. "Are there diggers around? Mama wants us to run back home if there are."

"No, there aren't," Felina promised. "Not in town. There might be some in the woods though, so I'm going to stop them from making any trouble."

"Good," the shekat said, wrinkling her nose. "I don't like 'em. They stink really bad, and Sherry's stories about her Nunc are scary! He came back after he got sick an' ate her parents up," she explained with the serious, semi-innocence only a kitten could manage when discussing such a topic, a detachment that said very clearly she believed the story, knew it was something she should be afraid of, but didn't quite put the full ramifications of it together as anything more than a frightening bedtime story.

"That is a scary story," Felina offered it the serious expression it deserved. "Was Sherry's uncle put back in the ground for good?"

"Uh-huh!" She nodded. "Sherry said he chased her, and she knocked a lamp down on him when she was running away," she explained. "He got burned up an' can't come back again, that's what Mama told her. But her folks can't come back either, so she came from the city to live out here with us."

It was all too typical a story; an ailing, likely wicked family member, either not given the proper burial rites or finding a way back despite them, come back to victimize those he was most familiar with. At least there had been about as happy an ending as could be expected, and the cycle brought to a close quickly.

Felina heard a faint rustle behind her, and thought it was one of the kits play-stalking her until the girl's eyes darted to the side on reflex.

"Derek, no!" She scolded a younger kit, rushing past Felina to stop the little one from whatever he'd been doing. He looked up at Felina with big blue eyes shining out of a white-furred face and mewed, not quite at the 'talking' stage yet.

"This is Derek, he's really likes things like that," the little girl explained, hugging the kit with one arm and pointing at Felina's pistol with the other. "He always tries to reach Sheriff's an' Mama stops him. I'm Rachael," she added, blushing a bit beneath her calico fur. "I'm sorry, I forgot to say."

"I am Felina," she smiled back at the pair. "It is good of you to watch out for him until he is old enough to understand the danger," she praised Rachel honestly. "Though speaking of Mother Whiteeye, I do need to speak with her. Enjoy your play-hunting."

"Okay!" Rachael smiled brightly at the praise, letting Felina go off to meet with their 'Mama.' It wasn't hard to find the house, just as the Sheriff had promised. It was a surprisingly large house that greeted her, though clearly one that had been expanded time and time again over generations, rather than built all at once. To judge by the number of kits working and doing chores around the yard and visible parts of the house, it would likely grow even further over the years. Mother Whiteeye herself was easy to spot, a wizened old woman sitting on a stump that had been carved into a chair and speaking with a woman who could only be the Kip mentioned back at the pub.

As Felina had been warned, Kip looked for all the world like an otter grown to giant proportions, with a sleek, lean body that held a sort of unnatural... beauty would be the wrong word, but certainly attractiveness. She was speaking animatedly, her hands gesturing all over the place as Mother Whiteeye just nodded at intervals and stirred a bowl of some concoction she'd been working on inside. Kip sighed and sat down on the edge of another stump, this one decorated with an elaborately carved troll whose narrow, hoof-like feet left enough room for the slender nixie to sit comfortably.

Mother Whiteeye looked up and over at Felina as she approached the edge of the yard, locking eyes with the Inquisitor. In an instant, Felina knew why the wizened old tabby had been given her name. Each of her eyes almost glowed as the light reflected off the thick cataracts that had grown over them, and yet it was clear that she could see to some distance at least.

"Welcome, Inquisitor," she called out, her voice thin but with a strength that spoke of having to call kittens from half way across the house constantly. "Richie said somebody was coming, and I thought it might be you. Good to know the spirits still tell me true." She laughed, sitting the bowl down next to her and putting a light cloth over it and motioning to a stump-chair for Felina to use if she wished.

"Shelly!" She shouted, turning towards the house. "Bring out the tea when it's ready, and no sneaking any of the honey!"

"Yes, mama!" a girl called back.

"Thank you, Mother Whiteeye," Felina smiled as she sat down. "You must be Kip," she inclined her head politely to the Otter.

"I am," Kip nodded, straightening up as much as the troll she was sitting under would let her. "You're looking into the trouble in the forest?" She asked hopefully. "I've been hearing the stories, and I'm worried about the fae living there."

"Yes, I am," Felina nodded, her manner serious. "The sheriff and a couple guards will be with me, at least at first. Anything you can tell me might be helpful, especially about why the fae would be in danger."

"Because they're part of the forest," Kip explained. "The Faewood is alive, just like the river, and the fae who live there are a part of it just like your fingers or your kidney are a part of you, or like I'm part of the river and village."

Felina nodded. "Forgive my ignorance. My knowledge of the undead may be extensive, but I have had little opportunity to learn much of the magical creatures."

"Don't worry, dearie, we'll make sure it's taken care of," Mother Whiteeye reassured her as Shelly brought out the tea. The girl was older than most of the others, almost a teen probably, a long-haired tortoise shell carrying a tray with three glasses and large kettle. She sat it down to serve the trio, the blend dark and aromatic with a hint of chamomile and nutmeg. Something to help calm Kip, no doubt. Mother Whiteeye tapped the tray lightly, then reached over to pick up a small clay jar of honey and sweeten her tea. When Shelly worked her way around to Felina, she spotted her holy symbol and gave her a shy smile.

"Thank you," she said softly as she offered Felina a cup of the tea. "For what you all do."

Felina accepted the tea with a warm smile for the girl. "I am glad I can help others. Rachael told me your story. I regret your loss could not be prevented."

"Not all of it," Shelly admitted, passing the honey over for Felina. "The fire didn't stop him, but an Inquisitor did, so I'm still grateful. I get along now."

"Thank you for bringing the tea, dearie," Mother Whiteeye told her, "but could you take the dough back inside? If you could start getting the bread ready for tonight, I'll let you stay up to help me mix a brew."

"Yes Mama," Shelly nodded, hurrying inside and taking the bowl with her.

"She's a good kit," the elderly woman smiled. "Like as not to take my place one of these days, if she settles down here instead of going back to the city when she grows up. "Now, we were speaking of the Faewood and its troubles, and the fool who brought them here."

"A necromancer," Felina spoke plainly. "I don't know what he did yet, but it is something most unusual. The undead wolf that was stopped was not animated by his intent, it is what we call a natural animation, yet animals do not possess the need to stay alive that normally creates natural undead. Something new is happening, and it is worrisome. How much do you know about treating those injured by the undead?"

"Clean the wounds well, first with clean water, then strong liquor blended with a healing draught, or whisper a prayer over it to summon the same power," the old woman said easily. "If that doesn't close the wound and it needs stitches, use a silver needle and thread washed with Moon's Tears to be sure. That's how my gram taught me, and hers before her. I have a kit I keep at the ready, just in case, though if you would do me the honor of making sure the Tears are still potent before you leave, I'd be most grateful. I haven't had to use it in years."

"She taught you well. More precautions that is usually necessary, but without an Inquisitor in residence, they are not a bad idea," Felina smiled, honestly pleased by knowing how effective the efforts would be. "I would be happy to check on the Tears, and given what we know is out there right now, I can create some more for you today. Tonight's rest will see to it that my magic is not drained when we go to the forest. Have you had anyone in need of such care lately?"

"Not in some time," she said, shaking her head. "We have little trouble with the undead, normally. It's why I was so certain to make sure the necromancer was run out of town; the Sheriff may not act until someone has given him cause, but that needn't hold me back. Not given how many old recipes to deal with the dead use kitten fat and claws. He came to me for guidance on how to keep the fae from him while he looked for something, though he wouldn't tell me what. Between his art and the chance he'd spark a war between our people, I was glad to see him gone."

"A good choice. Necromancers do no good," Felina shook her head with regret for the lives spent in pursuit of raising the dead. "Now I have some of the same questions," she looked at both women. "What are the best ways to avoid trouble with the fae and other residents of the faewood?"

"First, don't carry in anything made with cold iron," Kip said seriously. "I know that it's used to kill some undead, but it kills us just as well. I can feel some about you now; it would be like trying to negotiate with a werewolf while carrying silver. You might intend to fight vampires with it, but you could turn on them just as easily. Though if you do have any silver on you, that's not a problem. Some fae are vulnerable to it, but most of us recognize it's more for skinshifters and vampires. We usually like people who take them out, when they're trouble," she grinned.

"I'll leave them in the sheriff's vault then," Felina nodded. She wasn't thrilled by the idea of being down the bullets, but it was better than looking like an enemy to those she was trying to help.

"As for other ways to avoid trouble," Mother Whiteeye said, leaning back a little bit and considering the stories she knew, "wear your tunic or jerkin inside out beneath your armor to keep from being pixie led, and don't take any green wood from the forest. The Pact bars us from intentionally harming that which lives within its borders, plant or animal. If you step on an ant they understand, but carry in all your food, and likely a little extra in case you meet one who wants to test you."

"Wearing your clothes inside out isn't really _necessary_ ," Kip giggled. "Pixies will usually only lead you astray for a laugh, and they get enough amusement from seeing people walk around taking steps like that to leave them be. But the food and drink is a good suggestion; if you can afford to, see if you can buy a few bottles of the Elkin's good mead to take in with you. They've got excellent taste, and it'll go over well. And steer clear of mushroom circles, you're inviting us to come and play if you don't, especially if you set up camp in them!"

Felina nodded, taking the word of the resident fae seriously and making quick work of calculating her funds. Being only a week out from her last restocking and likely only a week from the next after this mission, she had more than she'd usually count on. Given the situation, she was more sure than usual that she could count on a bed and meals for free if she really needed them after the threat was dealt with. Medical care was something she could give an Order to Order IOU for if she had to. Not her first choice, she preferred to pay in silver, but it wouldn't be the first time, and it wouldn't be the last.

"More importantly, be polite, and try your best not to give offense. That could be difficult," Whiteeye warned. "They'll try to be hospitable, but you need to make sure that you only accept hospitality in return for your own. Taking of the fae leaves you open for them to decide what an appropriate repayment is, and they can be capricious about it."

Kip pouted at that, but in a way that left Felina with no doubts it was true all the same and Whiteeye snickered.

"Okay, she's right, but it's not really about us trying to be mean about it! Things are different in faerie lands, and fairness is often a matter of who gets to say 'no, I want more' when you're repaying a favor. I could give you the short version of fae manners, but anything more useful than the crash course we're giving you now would probably take at least a week. It's what happens when your world is run by a bunch of jaded, immortal, omnipotent rough drafts of the divine. The Eldest have had a _lot_ of time to come up with rules to amuse themselves."

"Perhaps when this is over, we can come to an agreement on those advanced lessons," Felina suggested as she thought about all that had been said. She focused on Kip. "What would bring us even for the hospitality of the knowledge you have shared?"

"Oh, don't worry about that, you're helping to save my town and my people," Kip said, waving Felina's concerns off. "It's my way of helping them out, to help you. I can't go back into the woods to help directly because of an old dispute with one of the Trollwives. Actually, that's worth mentioning too, now that I think of it. There's a very real chance that some of the fae will try seducing you or the people going in with you. I doubt you'll be all that inclined to take them up on it, but you'll want to have a ward on you to keep them from using magic to try and get what they want. Salt will work in a pinch, but a four-leaf clover will work better. Good luck finding one on short notice though," she admitted. "Especially finding one for every person going with you. Better to carry some salt and garlic in a little pouch around your neck. Not a sure protection, but it'll help."

"I have another ward you can use," Whiteeye said cryptically. "One as potent as the clover, as a protection. But I'll need Sherry to prepare it for you. You said you were going to spend the night in town, yes? I can have them ready for you by morning. The writing is beyond my eyes these days," she explained, "and I'd rather not share too many trade secrets, as it were."

"Understandable, and thank you both," Felina said honestly. "Yes, I'll be staying in the inn tonight, and we'll head out in the morning to see what we can find. I'll make sure the others know what to do and avoid, and are supplied to follow through. You know the sheriff sent a rider to the Temple in Moon Bay?"

"I heard something like that," Whiteeye nodded. "If he's going to bring back many to help you, I'm going to need more parchments for the wards," she chuckled. "How much aid do you expect from the Temple?"

"I've asked for the alchemist-inventor that lives there to come, and the sheriff asked for warriors," she explained. "I expect Jake, the alchemist-inventor, to come. I'd be surprised if more than one, possibly two warriors came with him, either knights or Inquisitors. This isn't like Crow's Lake, where we knew we were facing an entire village of ghouls. That brought every capable warrior within a moon's journey to help raze the place."

"You'll have a war on your hands if it has to go that far," Kip said seriously. "One that this village won't survive. So I sincerely hope that we can find a solution to this before it gets that far."

"We will," Whiteeye said confidently.

"Nothing I've seen indicates this would go that far," Felina promised, but also spoke honestly.

"I'll prepare a few extra then, for when they arrive," Whiteeye said. "The Square is a potent ward against fell enchantments and monsters; it'll keep you safe enough to find what's at the heart of this." She lifted her face to the slowly setting sun, looking at it and judging the time. "The woodsmen will be on their way back soon; I'd best be making sure dinner's cooking and get back to my spot to deal with any who've hurt themselves."

"I'll check with Shelly, if you don't mind Elder," Kip offered as she stood. "You can stay here then."

"Just have her send my kit out with you then," Whiteeye agreed, though she swung her hand to swat Kip on the backside as the Nixie walked past. "And no calling me your Elder!" She added with a wry grin. "That's _my_ Grandmother to you, ancient one!"

"Thank you for your assistance, Mother Whiteeye," Felina told the elder kat with a smile as she stood. "I should be going to speak with the woodsmen before they begin drinking."


	2. Finding Narin

Felina nursed a mug of the local ale as she waited for the first woodsmen to come in and hoped that it would be as easy to get information out of them as it had been the more senior members of the community.

Kip hadn't been far behind her in getting back to the pub, shouting back to the kitchen that the night rush was going to be starting 'any time now.' That had been about ten minutes before, though given the timing she probably hadn't actually seen the men getting back into town when she'd left Whiteeye's.

Fortunately, before Felina could get too irritated with the wait, the locals started to filter in. Most of them were laughing with each other and talking back and forth, trading boasts and jibes about what had happened during the day. Some had family with them. One, a gold and orange tabby she had to assume was Chance, came in with a field-dressed boar stretched out over his back.

"Hey boys!" Chance shouted out to the gathered woodsmen as he shrugged the beast off onto the floor, lifting it high so it could be seen. "Li'l Sureshot caught me on the way into town to bring this beauty in. Looks like we know what's for dinner tomorrow!" He was answered with general cheer for the huntress who slipped in behind him, a wisp of a girl whose powerfully muscled arms, long gloves, and leather breastplate marked her as an experienced archer.

"Assuming you can get it back to the kitchen without Madge tearing your whiskers out for dumping it on her clean floor," she observed wryly. "Get going, y'drunken lout!" She swatted Chance on the shoulder, sending the grinning tabby off towards the kitchen door where the family was working to prepare meals for a small army, sending the scent of a hearty fish chowder and freshly baked bread wafting through the place.

She couldn't help but smile at the good mood they had. It was a solid barometer of how serious the situation was to day to day life. They might be worried or weirded out by events, but it wasn't at the point where they feared to go out. After a moment to take it all in, Felina stood and clicked on her mug for attention. When she had it, she knew that they all knew why she had, who she was and what she wanted. "If those who are willing to tell me what you have seen would come over to my table, please."

A handful of the men and women stood to come over, the mood more subdued now. Most of them stood when they arrived, though a slightly overweight tom who walked with a peg opted to sit instead.

"Chance and Sureshot'll want to talk too, but first they'll be working out a deal over the boar," the kat with the peg explained, taking the lead as the eldest of the bunch. "So you're the Inquisitor the guard mentioned?"

"I am. We'll be headed out in the morning to see what I can find out, but the more I have to start with the better off we'll be," Felina said. "Who wishes to begin?"

"Might as well be me," he shrugged. "You can call me Stumps, the rest here are Joseph, Marek, Sophie, and Lefty," he said, indicating the rest of the group, the last lifting his left arm in acknowledgment, a cap on the end of it with a variety of heads strapped to his waist, from a variety of carpentry tools to a pair of gauntlets locked into different shapes.

"We've got a peculiar sense of humor around here some days," Stumps admitted. "Now, you wanted to hear about what we saw in the woods? My story's probably the shortest of 'em. I was working about a hundred paces from the Faewood when I heard something stumbling around behind me. I turned to see what it was, and saw a deer stumbling towards me. Looked like it had lost a leg, figured it was probably to a predator but... well, it wasn't bleeding."

Felina nodded. "How did you drive it off?"

"Pulled my carving knife and threw it; the thing had enough instincts left that it started lurching away when the blade hit the tree next to it, I guess," he explained. "Wanted to save my ax in case it tried anything, and I didn't know if it was safe to get close and try to kill it. I know that if something quits bleeding, it's because there's nothing left in it, seen that enough in my day. And... well, I don't move all that much faster than it did, to be honest."

She nodded her understanding and shifted her gaze to the next speaker.

"Most of us have run into things like that," Sophie piped up next. "Stuff that shouldn't happen. I've seen squirrels get into birds' nests before, but never one turn on her own young. She was nested in one of the dead trees on the edge of the Faewood though, so I didn't want to risk killing her. Taking a dead tree is one thing, but... well, Faewood."

"Don't take anything living within its edges," Lefty agreed. "That's the strange thing though. The trees aren't all dying like they should. I wandered into the wood a bit last week, looking for some deadwood. It's worth a pretty bonus from the mill, and they don't object if a dead tree gets cut down. Well, I found a whole copse of them, but the damned things were growing in new buds, all black. And Miri -" He paused, biting off something he was going to say as the others all gave him a sharp look.

"Looking for deadwood my missing foot," Stumps muttered.

"Miri wasn't right either," Lefty continued, putting his good hand on the end of his arm. "Like she was... hollow inside. Like somebody'd sucked the _her_ out of her."

"Miri's a dryad," Kip explained as she brought bowls of stew out to the gathered kats. "It sounds like whatever's in the animals is getting into the trees too, which means it's rotting her soul from the inside out. Dinner's on the house, for helping the Inquisitor," she added before heading back in for the next round.

"The trees are where my story comes up, but I can hold off while you finish yours," Chance added, the burly tabby bringing out drinks for all of them, keeping two large tankards for himself. "Unless you want to eat while I make an ass of myself again," he added with the bitterness of a kat who'd been told he was making things up only to be firmly proven right.

"Ah, Chance, we didn't mean... none of _us_ saw the trees walking around!" Sophie protested. "Dead trees, even undead ones... do undead trees even happen?" She asked, looking at Felina for confirmation.

"Trees, not to my knowledge," Felina said, only to raise a hand to stop them from saying anything. "I do know of several ways Chance may have seen exactly what he says he saw. Some creatures can animate trees or plants, including dead ones. There are also at least two creatures that look like trees and can move about, but they aren't actually trees. The creatures could be affected by whatever is killing and animating the normal animals." She shifted her gaze to Lefty. "It is likely the dead trees you saw were blooming that way because of what is happening to Miri, though I can't be sure."

The rest of the group told their own stories, all much more like the first. Some disturbing creature that was promptly scared off, or that scared them off, because they didn't particularly want to have to deal with it. Not that Felina could blame them. When they'd finished, Chance drained his second tankard, setting it onto the table with a rattling thud. He wiped his mouth and sat down to tell the rest of his own story while the others started their dinner.

"You all were right about one thing; my story involved me doing something stupid at the start of it. I got lured into the Faewood by something that sounded like it was calling for help. Whiteeye told me later that I should wear my tunic inside out or something, but you know how I work." He grinned wryly, getting eyerolls and an appreciative chuckle or two from his audience. "Well, I figured out that I was being lured in pretty quick, but not before I was still pretty well lost. And with the rules around here, you don't want to go marking your path on trees. I knew I'd find my way back to the river if I kept headed downhill, so I started walking, and kept my eyes low so I wouldn't just go in circles. I ended up finding my way down to a lake that was surrounded with sick trees."

"Grey and lifeless, with the black buds?" Lefty asked him.

"Yeah, though some of the buds had opened up. Place was buzzing with wasps too, big ones that didn't sound particularly good tempered. But what really got me was that one of the trees was moving around, like I said. It would move a bit in one direction, shake its branches around, then move in another one. I've seen it before, but not from trees. It was like watching an Elder whose mind went long before his body did, trying to find the pipe he has in his pocket and getting angry that he can't. Think that might've been what was pissing off the wasps, but it's hard to tell. They might've just been that way normally, for all I know."

"So how'd you find your way out of the woods, hmm?" Stumps asked him. "You'd found a lake, but I haven't heard of any lake that runs down to the river from the Faewood."

"Found my way over to some trees that were healthy, climbed up high enough to get a good look around, and made my way out," Chance shrugged. "I wasn't too far off, but that's why I ended up losing half a day's work."

Felina simply nodded at the story. It sounded like a treant, though neither of them were familiar enough with them to know for sure. The description of its actions as addled was very interesting, though she didn't know what it could mean either. All in all, it was clear that this was not a normal situation in any way.

"Well, you can understand why it's still a pretty strange story... especially since you were a bit more drunk when you told it last time," Sophie tried to point out. Chance snorted and shook his head.

"Yeah, well, bit of a different light on things now that she's here, isn't there?" He asked, indicating Felina.

"So," he continued, "you're going in there tomorrow? Going to want some help trying to find the lake?"

"Help is welcome," Felina nodded seriously. "The sheriff and two guards are coming with me, but if Mother Whiteeye can make another charm before we leave, I'd be glad for your company as well."

"Heh - be glad to join you, ward or not, just to prove I'm not that drunk," he grinned wryly, starting in on his stew as another tankard came over from a young shekat, presumably one of Madge's daughters. "Probably just going to have me though. Sureshot doesn't like messing with the undead. Not sure why, but they give her the creeps, even ones like this. It's why she didn't come over here to listen in," he explained.

"I'd call that a sane reaction," Felina said seriously. "Undead are bad news. Though I want you to have a ward. It means that if a fae tries something, the rest of us won't have to go after you for your protection. Though if she can't make one in time, you can see if one of the guards coming will switch places with you."

"I'll see to it," he promised. "I guess I'm just a bit more used to some of the weird shit that's out there than a lot of folks. I'm not a native, like most everybody else in town here is; I've come a pretty long way from home, and seen a lot between here and there." He took a long draught of his ale. "Some of it I'm happier to have seen than others. You know what I mean, I'm guessing."

"I expect so," Felina nodded seriously, and ate some of her dinner as the others dispersed. "What brought you to stay?"

"Ever hear of Lidea?" Chance asked her, chuckling slightly when she shook her head. "Can't say I'm surprised, most people haven't in this part of the world. It's... it _was_ oversea, far to the west. Have you ever had something that you'd give anything to protect, but you didn't realize it until it was too late?"

"I can't say that I have," Felina answered, wondering where he was going with his answer.

"Well, that was Lidea to me. Didn't realize what I had until it was taken away though." He finished his tankard and leaned back in his seat. "We were invaded by the Drakhnari, neighbors of ours, and I was too hungover to fight worth a damn. Got knocked out and taken off as a slave, along with most of the other survivors. Eventually managed to get loose and make my way to a ship, but... well, until I'm good enough to be anything but a martyr I can't go back home. I've been traveling from one place to another since then, picking up odd jobs, and since I'm good with an ax working as a woodsman made sense. Especially when I found out about the Faewood. There's something here worth protecting. Good kats, and they exist peacefully with neighbors most places would be trying to wipe out. But they still have trouble now and then, whether it's goblins, bandits, or necromancers nobody knows about. Gives me a chance to try and make up for fucking up back home." He signaled for another drink as the next round came out.

"Oh, and don't worry about how much I drink. I figured out how to make it work for me back in the slave pits. The hangover just makes me fight harder, so I'm not the most miserable kat on the field," he explained with a cocky grin.

"And how does that work for you when there's no one to fight?" Felina asked.

"It also takes a _lot_ to get me hung over. The Irregulars are all pretty hard-core followers of the Burning Blade; work hard, fight harder, celebrate the victory by working your way through a gallon or so of boneshaker. I just broke the rule about 'and be ready to do it all again the next day,'" he admitted. "The Drakhari hadn't been especially aggressive, but their new patriarch decided to change all that pretty suddenly. They went from being courageous defenders for a price to slavers and conquerors practically overnight. We hadn't expected an invasion at all, and certainly hadn't expected them to fly around the outside of the country to come at us first. We were a pretty remote village, but mountains are a good place to set up defenses, and they probably wanted to start with a rich haul to keep morale up. The Drakhari are all dragon-blooded," he explained.

Felina choked on the mouthful of ale she was drinking, her eyes going huge as she tried, and failed miserably, to grasp an _entire nation_ of dragon-blooded.

"It's less terrifying when they're on _your_ side," Chance said sympathetically. "At least most of them can't fly, but the full-blood dragons can, and you'd be amazed how many foot troops a single dragon-knight's mount can haul. Not that it takes many, especially when you've got a dragon knight on his brother's back flying support. Even the foot troops have scales like steel, and practically every one of the bastards can spit fire, acid, lightning, something like that. That's why I decided there was no way I'd live long enough as an escaped slave over there to actually do some good. One of these days I'm going to try it though."

"Just how many dragons are there among the Drakhari?" Felina's brain snapped into protective information-gathering most fast. They might not be at the castle gates, but if a _dragon_ had decided to become a conqueror with an army like that, they would come.

Chance shrugged.

"Honestly, don't know. Big ones? Only a couple, and up until the last Patriarch was taken down they mostly fought each other when they got irritable. Smaller ones, lots. But only the Patriarch and the ones that old would be able to make a cross-ocean flight," he reassured her. "I've already thought that over. And you couldn't move 'em on ships, they're too big. The logistics would be a nightmare."

"But not impossible," she said with entirely too much faith in the ability to do the impossible with sufficient will, resources, magic or combination of the above. "It might be impossible for us, but for dragons, with hundreds or thousands of years to plan, plot and prepare, much less so." He shook her fur out. "I'm biased though, since my entire Order exists on the impossible happening entirely too often."

"Hey, if your Order wanted to bring a few guns around and thin the population, I wouldn't say no," Chance chuckled grimly. "It's pretty easy to spot the big ones that are going to be trouble, and from what I've seen you've got the edge on us in terms of firepower. When your continent's major army has dragon-blooded, they don't work too hard on figuring out gunpowder. First time I saw one in action I almost had to hit the litterbox."

"If even half the stories I've heard are true, I don't doubt it," she agreed. "How fast can they move in the air? Good enough to avoid a cannonball?"

"Haven't seen a cannon fired, so I couldn't tell you," Chance admitted. "But from what I have seen, if the guy shooting had a good idea of what he was doing, probably not until they knew what they were up to. I've heard stories about them being hurt by ballistas and catapults, but they can _usually_ dodge a catapult. The good news is, the more dangerous they are, the worse they fly. It's hard to move that much of anything, let alone a dragon. The bigger question is if they'd think to dodge it; you'd probably have one shot they wouldn't even think to dodge, just because they're used to little guys like us making big noises and lots of smoke with spells that can't really hurt them that badly. And if they were coming in on a charge...." His whiskers twitched with an almost distressing show of anticipation at the thought of what that first shot would do.

"So the short version is, I'd be happy to talk to your Order about the dragons some time, as long as they're willing to put up with a lot of 'I've heard about this happening, but haven't seen it.' Our fight was pretty short; once the dragon actually got into the fight, those of us who hadn't already been taken down realized our choice was between being captured or being cooked, from what I was told."

"This is a gun ball," Felina pulled a basic led shot from her ammo pouch. "A cannon ball is roughly the size of your head and moves just as fast, though the large fortresses sometimes have cannon that use balls twice that size. Mobile artillery is half the base size. There are also things like grape and chain shot designed to take down a galleon's masts or massed soldiers. They're _very_ effective against physical undead. One experiment had a normal cannonball going through fifteen zombies chest to back before stopping. We will take you up on that talk about dragons, but the best information would be what port you came into. We really need to talk to a spellcaster, or someone who knows how some of us can walk free in the dragon lands to study them. As bad as a dragon might be, an undead one would be ten times worse."

"Okay, yeah, those undead would be scary," he admitted. "I'm not really that spooked by them normally, but that's what comes from living in a place where everybody around you is good with an ax, a scythe, or a pick, and mercenaries can breathe fire and acid."

"Sounds a bit like growing up an Inquisitor," Felina gave an understanding smile. "Experience and knowledge, having it drilled into you that fear and panic aren't helpful, and drilled into you more to trust your skills does a lot to make you steady even if you don't know exactly what's going on. So you're good with an ax. Was that your primary weapon as a warrior?"

"Mine, yes. It's what I'll be bringing with me tomorrow too, though you probably won't get to see it at its best unless something _really_ strange happens. I don't think we'll be running into too much fire in the forest. Hope not, at least, just because I'd hate to see the forest catch. Most of my people weren't warriors though, not most of the time. Even the rest of the Irregulars usually had something else they did, we were just the ones who spent at least half our time practicing for when the fights did come. Most everybody did train, in case it was needed, but that's kind of like around here. Every kat in the room could probably split a goblin if you gave them an ax or a hammer.

"Then there's those of us who keep them far enough away they don't have to," 'Sureshot' said as she slipped into the chair next to Chance and gave him a peck on the cheek. "So, I'm wagering that you two are done being ghoulish for a while?"

"Yes," Felina smiled warmly and raised her mug to the shekat in greeting. "To more pleasant topics for the evening."

* * *

The next morning, Felina rose early to prepare for the day's explorations. She was greeted with the smell of another hearty breakfast as she came down from the rooms on the second floor of the Nixie's Nest in her full armor again, this time properly cleaned and ready for duty, her pistol charged with buck and ball, mace at her hip, and knives strapped in place and readily reached in case of an emergency. The rest of her gear was loaded into a backpack that was rigged to her armor and ready to drop with a quick yank on the straps so she could move more easily.

As Madge saw her, the Xanith nodded appreciatively.

"You Inquisitors clean up well. Breakfast before you head out?" She asked, indicating the Sheriff, Chance, and two guards who were working through their own sausages and thick porridge at a table near the door.

"Thank you, and yes. A warm breakfast would be most welcome," Felina nodded and sat down with the four toms. Reflex had her check them out for equipment and rules for the trek. "Any news overnight?"

"Only Shelly bringing these over early this morning," Longclaw said, pulling out a small, tightly folded piece of parchment and passing it to Felina. "Said Whiteeye told her to warn us not to open them to keep the magic bound inside. I'm not inclined to argue with her."

"I'm not either," Felina accepted her ward. Standard wards were not so fussy, but it wasn't worth crossing Whiteeye over it. It wasn't as if she could reproduce it even if she knew what she was looking at. Her meal arrived as she was putting it away and she dug in with relish.

Before long, Madge had waved off the offer of payment, and they were following the woodsmen out of town and breaking off towards the Faewood. Without knowing the area, Felina had wondered how everybody seemed to know the boundaries, but as they made their way through the brief layer of normal woods between the village and their unusual neighbors, she became much more aware of it. In the normal forest, animals became quiet or stilled around them, their natural fear of possible hunters leading them to react the way she was used to.

When they stepped into the Faewood, it was like she'd suddenly entered a different world entirely. The smells of pine and oak and maple, of living earth and the plants around them, were all more potent. The colors were more vibrant, when they hadn't been a step before. And the animals continued their activities without fear of the mortals who had entered their realm, as though they knew on a fundamental level that they were protected here.

"You all right?" Chance asked her quietly as they paused for a moment just inside the woods. "It can take a little getting used to the first time or two."

"I'm fine. This is amazing," she replied quietly as she continued to take it all in. "I can feel the magic that permeates it."

"You can see why there's a strong temptation to come here," Longclaw agreed. "And the wood's ideal for holding enchantments as well. We could have easily gone a different way if Elkin hadn't been willing to negotiate with them. Well, should we try and make contact with the fae, or go looking for Chance's lake of wasps and walking trees?" He asked Felina, deferring to her judgment.

"Given Miri seems to be predisposed to be friendly, I'm inclined to find her first," Felina decided. "Assuming someone knows where her grove is."

"I know," Longclaw growled lowly. "Had to pick Lefty up the first time he got in trouble out there. It's this way," he said, beginning to lead the way. As he started off, he unslung the musket over his shoulder, carrying it ready to fire if need be.

"Closest we came to having real trouble between us and the Fae in a generation," one of the two guards, a stocky tabby tom named Erik, explained as they followed. "Lefty was fooling around with Miri. The problem is, most dryads who don't hide or enchant you as a plaything are spoken for, and she was no exception."

"Her ... mate ... objected?" Felina asked, her senses on high alert.

"Pretty strongly at that," Erik nodded. "Satyr came after him with a cudgel the size of my arm, and Lefty had to fight him off. Sheriff had to help settle things afterwards; Lefty was in bad shape, but the satyr was worse off, and his kin were pretty sore about it all. Lefty's hand paid the debt, but it's left a sour taste in most everybody's mouth, especially since the damned fool can't keep himself away from her."

"Hard to blame him, from what I've seen," Chance joked, his ears twitching attentively despite the conversation. "Especially since she _hasn't_ enchanted him."

"Not that you'd know the difference," Longclaw muttered. "He'll end up losing something that's gotten him into more trouble than a hand if he keeps it up and isn't careful. Wasn't part of the agreement, but I know they don't like seeing him around."

Felina nodded, but kept her thoughts to herself. It sounded like any number of domestic issues she'd dealt with, both among the living because locals recognized her as an authority figure, and because one or more parties refused to let their deaths end the debate.

The sheriff clearly did know the way, and they made good time to the dying, blackened grove with its strange black flowers. She couldn't stop the shudder and fluffing of her fur. She hadn't felt a place like this since she'd had to investigate an ancient graveyard that a necromancer had raised in a single go.

"Just like the trees around the water," Chance observed.

"Miri?" Longclaw called out cautiously. "We heard you were in trouble... we're here to help you."

"There is no helping us," a voice of haunting, otherworldly beauty called out, seemingly from every tree in the grove. "All is dying. The black blood flows, and all is filled from the beating heart. So cold... never so cold as in this darkness."

"Come out Miri, so we may see you," Felina called, just shy of demanding it as adrenaline began to flow. She knew those words, knew what it meant. Whether vampridic or ghoul, the dryad was in the final stages of a conversion.

"Leave us be! We are sick, let us die in peace!"

"We can't do that, Miri," Longclaw countered. "What would Landon say if I told him we'd done that?"

"Then don't tell him! I've hurt him enough! Hurt him, hurt poor Bacchal... all I bring is pain! Even the Knights do not come here anymore! They have given up on me, why shouldn't he?"

"This isn't like her," the Sheriff muttered. "The poetics yes, but not the pity."

"Do you know a spell that might save her?" Chance asked Felina quietly.

"Not directly, but I can buy time for us to find the cure. Which tree is her special one?" She looked to all of them. "Who are the Knights?"

"The Knights are their Guard," Longclaw explained. "When a matter goes beyond the ability of those involved to resolve, the Knights are supposed to come in and make the final decision. I've never actually seen one though; even the issue with Bacchal didn't progress that far. If the Knights are called in for an issue, it's kind of a failure of theirs, I guess. Though if this doesn't count for reason to bring them in, I don't know what does."

"Miri? We're trying to help you out here," Chance piped up. "We've got some medicine that might treat you, but we need to know where to put it." As he spoke, he approached a particularly old oak and put his hand on it. "Is it this one?"

"Why prolong this? We should let the cold take us, let the darkness feed."

Chance moved on to another tree, ears twitching as he listened carefully.

"This one?"

"Chance, we should probably find a better way to do this than asking about every tree," Longclaw told the tabby.

As Chance reached a third oak, one where the buds were opening to reveal sickly black flowers.

"How about this one?" Chance asked. At Miri's silence, he popped his claws and sank them into the bark. The reaction was immediate, nearly more reflex than something thought out. Miri shrieked with rage, a hail of pebbles and nuts flying out of the trees and pelting Chance. He ran back to the others, his claws covered with black sap.

"That's the one," he winced as another round of acorns rained onto his head. "Though I don't think she'll appreciate your help all that much."

"Few this far gone do," Felina admitted as she walked to the tree, ignoring the pelting she received. Devine energy swelled inside her with a few softly spoken words as she laid both hands on the tree, then unleashed that power deep into the dryad's tree.

The black sap seeping from the 'wounds' Chance had inflicted on the tree changed colors as Miri screamed, the black becoming less dominating, fading slightly as some of the poison flowing through it was destroyed by Shelar's power.

"Stop, please, it burns! You're hurting us!" Miri pleaded as the males with her cringed. "Landon, please!" Her scream resonated through the woods, as if the very trees were crying out. Felina's spell faded as its work was done, and Miri dropped from the branches of the tree. She looked like a squirrel in the same way Kip did an otter, and much like Kip, was clearly beautiful. Or had been, at least.

Now, luxuriant gray-red fur was patchy with mange, her formerly bushy tail more like a rat's than a squirrel's. Her eyes were sunken into their sockets, and were sold-black except for a crazed glint. She shook on her feet as she tried to hold a long, thin stiletto, but she clearly barely had the strength to stand, let alone use the weapon.

"Can't... can't let you... hurt us!" She gasped, staggering towards Felina. Chance and the guards moved in, the two guards drawing their clubs to try and hold her off without doing any further harm.

"Might want to get this over with soon!" Chance shouted to Felina. "Before any help arrives!"

Before Felina could answer, she heard somebody crashing through the woods. As she looked to see what was happening, Longclaw turned to aim in the direction she'd looked, only for Lefty to rush into the clearing.

"Sheriff?" The one-handed kat asked, raising his hand and stump on reflex. "What's going on?"

"Trying to heal her!" Felina called over the noise of her team trying to keep both dryad and the dryad's lover from attacking her. She trusted the four toms to do their part and pulled a carefully cured and marked waterskin from her gear. Without hesitating she poured two measures around the roots of Miri's tree, capped and put it away before turning to watch the dryad, hoping than at least one of her efforts would help.

Of course, 'helping' was a relative term. Felina had helped treat a patient in the throes of Ghoul Fever once, one who had resisted all prior attempts at treatment, and so was familiar with the wracking pains that seemed to be afflicting Miri through the tree her body and soul were bonded to. The dagger fell from her hands as she contorted, retching up a load of black bile that smelled like death itself.

"Sweet gods!" Lefty swore, horrorstruck at the scene. Even Chance and the guards backed away suddenly, not sure what would happen if they were exposed to the vile liquid.

"Landon... please!" Miri pleaded weakly, looking up at Lefty. Her eyes weren't as mad as they had been before, but to Felina's eyes it was clear she was still under the influence. Then her black eyes flashed green with magical power.

"Miri... no!" Lefty groaned, reaching up to his head.

"What -" Longclaw's question was cut off when Lefty rushed him. There was an eruption of noise as the Sheriff's musket went off, the lead ball flying wild and sending a plume of splinters out where it crashed into another of the dying trees.

"Call them off!" Lefty roared, raising his left arm, ax blade mounted on the stump.

Fortunately, while the Sheriff had been caught unawares by the charge, he still had a decade's worth of experience in battle, and much more pitched battle than Lefty was used to. He brought his musket up, smashing the stock into the side of Lefty's face, sending the woodsman reeling off of him, still under the influence of the spell Miri had cast on him.

Felina was on the one-handed kat in the next instant, her training far more intense than any of the others in how to handle deranged but not evil people. Lefty was strong, and the magic made him crazed. Not exactly what she was used to and he managed to shove the axe against her shoulder armor. It left a mark on the hardened bone, but nothing on her.

Chance rushed over, thinking quickly enough to put his foot on the part of Lefty's arm that wasn't restrained and rip the ax head off the end of it, leather straps coming loose, a pair of restraining pins popping free.

"A little less dangerous now, at least," he grumbled as she secured his forearms together, then hobbled him with the same rope.

"Thanks," Felina nodded to him as she stood, then focused on the writhing, crying squirl-nymph as her pain gradually subsided.

"The one kat here who's not warded, and he has to be head over tail for her!" Chance shook his head.

There was another wretched, pathetic sound, and Lefty stopped struggling.

"Thank Nor you've got solid armor," Lefty murmured, coming to his senses as the enchantment left him.

"The Inquisitor's the one you hit, tried to kill the sheriff. Fortunately they're both better than you," Chance told him. "Just going to leave you like that until we know she's done with the magic."

"Don't blame you," the bound kat agreed. "She promised she'd never do that to me."

"Well, I wouldn't hold it against her too much," Chance offered. "I think whatever's inside her is messing with her head."

"Which is going to keep this from being _another_ mess between the Faewood and the town, I hope," Longclaw muttered as he got to his feet. "Is anybody hurt?" He asked as Felina checked on her unusual patient.

"You hit the tree, Sheriff," Erik said loudly. "And I think Miri's starting to come around, so it looks like it's going to quiet down."

"Still cold," the dryad complained weakly. "Ugh... didn't think I could do that." She rolled onto her side, curling her ragged tail up around herself protectively, too uncomfortable to even try and move beyond that.

"Do what?" Felina asked gently.

"I think you call it throwing up?" Miri said miserably. "Feels like my soul tried to rip out of me."

"Not that far off," Felina said, stroking her head, trying to be soothing. "The sickness probably tried to take it with it."

"Hoofbeats, from the west," Chance interrupted, turning to face them and pulling out his axe, not sure what the problem would be.

"The Knights," Miri murmured tiredly.

"Then down with the axe," the sheriff said firmly. "We are not here as enemies."

"Right," Chance nodded, slinging the weapon back over his shoulder with a bit of hesitation, clearly not too comfortable with being unarmed without knowing for sure they weren't going to be attacked on sight. Of course, the incredibly light armor he was wearing, a mail-reinforced band of silk wrapped around his belly, might have had something to do with that.

Still, he did his best to appear unthreatening, the guards doing the same, even Longclaw setting his musket down rather than working on reloading as they all heard the steps coming closer, like a small squadron of horses, at least four, approaching as quickly as they could through the trees.

None of them were sure what to expect, though they all expected some display of metal, of the arms and armor that would befit a group of mounted knights. What they didn't expect was a quintet of unicorns, all of them white with blazing golden manes but the leader, to break into the clearing. The leader was almost more striking than the others, his coat black as coal, mane a shimmering silver, his horn like obsidian as it rose from his forehead with an elegant curve to its twisted surface. He looked the scene over, his equine expression grave.

 _"Man boltle sinome?"_ The leader asked in a deep, powerful voice, the language flowing from astonishingly nimble lips.

 _"Nissi... kammasei,"_ Longclaw spoke haltingly, stumbling over unfamiliar words.

 _"Onelkatorra, sia ith,"_ Chance interrupted fluidly, catching the leader's attention in an instant, _"shar tir wux renthisj calti usv Vs'shtak?"_

"Both," the unicorn said haltingly himself. "Though your tongue, not well. My pardon," he said, inclining his head slightly towards Chance. _"Vs'shtak?"_

"I can translate for us," Chance explained briefly, earning a grateful nod from the Sheriff.

 _"Miri ui jimva, vur yth xoal'si ekess letoclo jacioniv. Persvek wer_ fever, _jaciv lowda udoka, korja mrith jacioniv itov. Jaciv vorqic desta jaka, shar yth re bivai ihk wer_ gunshot. _coi bihainwor stoda svadrav wer Meagear jahus lowda."_

 _"Geou jaciv itrewic desta?"_ The unicorn asked seriously.

"He wants to know if she's going to recover," Chance told Felina. "Be honest. Dragon-tongue is really bad at sugar-coating anything but how great who you're talking to is."

"If we can determine what caused her to be sick before she dies, yes, she should recover. My spell and holy water has bought us some extra time," Felina said, her tone both serious and respectful of the unicorn. She'd heard of these creatures, knew their purpose, but even as experienced as she was, she'd never actually _seen_ one before. She didn't know they came in different colors, and wondered if it was based on age, rank, magic, or random at birth. If unicorns were born and not simply created.

While she thought, Chance translated. The lead unicorn looked at Felina, then lowered its forequarters, inclining its head towards her respectfully and speaking for Chance to translate back.

"He says that he's very grateful for your aid, and that you are here, Inquisitor." Another brief exchange of words, and Chance's expression darkened. "Apparently they've been trying to keep things under control themselves, but they can't figure out how to cure the poison that a black-robed kat brought here. Narin, I'd guess. It's not like any poison they've tried to treat before, and they were starting to consider desperate measures to find a cure. He'd rather not go into what they were."

"Do they know, or suspect, how the poison was introduced to so many? Or where it first appeared?" Felina asked, excited by the prospect of at least knowing how it spread, or where it began. It was incredibly valuable information.

"They say it's spreading through the ground and water... something about the Heart of the Forest; proper name, not sure what for," Chance explained after a longer exchange. He tried asking them to clarify, then continued. "The Heartwood? I think it might be that tree I saw walking around at the pond," he explained. "When they try explaining it, it starts to get into the honorifics, and that goes on forever. Sixty different words for the texture of scales, and you're supposed to use all that apply," he said apologetically.

"As if the Heartwood looks like a tree that can walk." Felina suggested.

"Well, if you want to do it the easy way," Chance quipped, speaking with the unicorns briefly again.

"Yeah, that sounds like him. They say he's looking for the cure, and I get the feeling they mean that literally, like he dropped it or something. His mind is suffering from the poison a lot like Miri's was, but less violently, I think."

"A treant," Felina supplied the common name for the intelligent walking tree. "He might be looking for the poison that he was injected with. Or simply lost his mind."

Chance translated for the unicorns so they could use the common name later if need be. One of the unicorns in the back added something, and Chance scowled. "Those wasps have the poison in them. Crud. Sounds like they tried to get close enough to help, but one of their warriors was swarmed by them. They're not comfortable talking about what happened to him."

"I don't doubt it," Felina winced. "Short form on my guess: they put him down as a mercy from the stings, and had to do it again because of the poison. We'll need to plan the approach to the treant carefully, but I would say that needs to be our focus. Like any new disease, it's important to find the source if you want to develop a cure. In this case, if we can treat the treant, we might well treat the entire forest. At least the parts still alive."

She paused for a beat. "Ask them if there is a way to get permission to kill the wasps if we need to."

"You have it," the leader said in the common tongue.

"Hard to do without starting a fire though," Chance muttered. "Or at least the smoke from one. I don't suppose any of you have a brace of smokesticks, do you?" He asked, looking between the group.

"I think Steinfeldt, the beekeeper, knows how to make them, but it'd take him time," Longclaw said, shaking his head. "Not much use for them outside of that, and occasionally sending signals."

"'Smoke-sticks?'" The leader asked them. Chance explained the concept in draconic before turning back to Felina.

"Would it do any good to find Narin's body? I know some of the priests back home could get information out of a corpse."

"I know of the spell, though I'm not powerful enough yet to cast it," she hummed. "The Inquisitor I asked for help can though, if the village priest can't. So yes, his body may do some good to have, though samples of the treant's fluids and environment might be worth more. Narin's remains might have his notebook or even a sample of what he used. Those would speed developing a cure a great deal. Tell them that the Inquisitor and alchemist I spoke of will not arrive for at least eleven days. It is a long ride to and from Moon Bay."

Chance explained, and the leader nodded, whinnying something to the others. Two of them turned and started to canter off while the black unicorn explained.

"They're going to go see that the path is clear between here and there," Chance translated. "They'll stick to the fae realm, and be willing to help their travel if necessary. I'm not quite sure what they mean, but I think we'll be seeing them sooner, with a bit of luck. Also, their Commander's name is Sir Ebon Moonshadow; he's offered to help us find what we need, though we'd both appreciate it if we could make a brief side-trip so they can get a reinforcement who understands Common better."

"That would be welcome, Sir Ebon Moonshadow," Felina's tone didn't hide her gratitude for the help or for the easier conversation that would come. She looked down at Miri. "Are you feeling better?"

"A bit," she nodded. "Please... take Landon somewhere safe? I don't know what could happen to him here," she said, struggling over to her tree, leaning against it. Before their eyes, she faded through the bark and into it, the leaves rustling despite the lack of breeze as she went to rest and try to conserve her strength.

"A dose of holy water on her roots every day will go a long way to helping her remain alive and keep the sickness at bay," Felina said as one of the guards unbound Lefty and helped him up.

"I'll see him home and that he is kept an eye on," the guard promised.

"Even if that means a cell," the sheriff added.

"Right," the guard nodded and took off, walking Lefty towards town.

"Cy'ril will be here soon," Moonshadow told them. "Best to wait for him. You know the one who did this?" He asked Felina.

"I believe so," she nodded. "I've been hunting a necromancer named Narin Longreach for almost two years now. All indications are that he is the one who created the poison, and his is the body by the treant," she explained, going into details she hadn't shared with many villagers, though the sheriff recognized there was little of value even to him in the talk of the necromancer's specialties and history.

She was still talking when a new unicorn arrived, another black beauty with a silver mane and glass-finished obsidian horn.

The two black unicorns had a brief exchange in their own language before the newcomer stepped up and inclined his head towards the group.

"I am Cy'ril, night-born watcher of the woods," he introduced himself formally. "Our thanks for helping Miri. I'm sorry to say that this poison vexes even our efforts."

"That is useful to have confirmed. It is a necromancer's creation, likely more magic that actual poison," Felina told him. "What would be most useful now is to retrieve the body of the kat by the treant. It may have a sample on it, or his notebook. Is that something you or your allies could do without exposing yourselves to the wasps?"

"It will be difficult," Cy'ril admitted. "However, I should be able to keep them away from me long enough to retrieve the body, if it is still in a condition where it can be taken away with a single charge. The venom inside the wasps has affected them in much the same way it has Miri, though far more fatally. They are as vulnerable to the power of the divine as any zombie, but with so many of them it is difficult to keep them at bay for long."

"Wait, flying zombie wasps that can spread the toxin?" Chance asked, flattening his ears. "I'm starting to wish I was back home with the dragons."

"If you were, you would at least have an effective weapon against the wasps," Cy'ril agreed dryly. "If the Heartwood should decide to release them, I fear fire will be the only way to cleanse the woods."

Felina shuddered. "I would try divine magic before fire, though I fear you would be correct. Would it be helpful to have a rider to help fend them off and grab the body?"

He thought for a moment, considering the question.

"Are you familiar with this spell?" He asked, using his horn to lightly etch a number of runes into the bark of one of the dead trees.

Felina studied it carefully. Though her immediate reaction was yes, she knew _Invisibility to Undead_ , she wanted to make very sure that's what he wanted before she said yes.

"I've used it several times. A very good idea," she agreed.

"Then it would likely be our best option," Cy'ril nodded. "One person, preferably without a particularly strong sense of smell, given he's been there at least a week."

"He can't smell half as bad as most of what I deal with," Felina said with a sense of humor. "Ready?"

"Ready; I know the way to the pool from here," Cy'ril told her, standing still next to her. "It would probably be best if the others stayed here, where it's safer."

She nodded and swung up on his back with the ease of someone not just used to riding, but well-practiced at riding bareback. He gave her a moment to find her balance and settle with her knees tight against him and a hand wound into his mane, and then was off.

The ride was a strange one, albeit uneventful. Some groves were polluted, but others were pristine. Some trees had deep gouges in them, as though somebody had crudely tried to tap them for sap. Others were scarred with claw-marks to mark the path of the kat who had been that way last.

Those were the ones Cy'ril followed the most cautiously. Felina could feel his rage every time they saw a new damaged tree, a wordless tension she hadn't really felt since she and her Uncle had found a temple despoiled by a vampire cult. She felt that same blend of magical energies as well; a peace disturbed by necromantic powers beyond the ken of true mortals. What had Narin done here?

Soon, she became aware of a dull buzzing in the distance, over a small hill.

"Now would be the time to cast your spell," Cy'ril told her quietly. "If it fails, take the body and run. I'll hold them back while you get away, then come to join you."

"Understood," she responded before focusing inward and drawing on the power to make them invisible to the undead. It was a simple spell among Inquisitors, one of the early ones acquired to allow an inexperienced Inquisitor to escape with their life and go for help. Later one used it for more dangerous things, and this was on the top of that list. If the enchantment failed for any reason, they were likely both undead.

At least they did have whatever power Cy'ril had suggested might get him through in an emergency. He started towards the grove carefully at first, where he could still retreat at an instant's notice if the wasps weren't affected, but as they crested the hill the swarms ignored them.

Looking down into the grove was heartbreaking; it was obvious how recently it had been a beautiful place, but now the toxin had well and truly taken hold. The grass was gray and sickly, swaying despite the lack of wind, almost like it had somehow inherited the undead nature of the creatures around it. The pool was streaked with slick black streams, and the entire place stank like a mix between a swamp and a morgue.

But at the base of the hill, in the middle of a dead patch, she could see Narin's body. She heard rustling, and a disturbance in the buzzing, as one of the thickest trees started to move. It rumbled something, low and slow, as it started to circle the pond. As Chance had noted, every few minutes it would wander a bit off of its path, as though it was looking for something, and then cursing whatever gods it followed.

But, while it was moving away from Narin, they had their opening, and Cy'ril took it, starting down the hill cautiously towards the stench of a thoroughly beaten body.

Felina held on, ready to bolt off his back to grab the body and run at any moment, ready to call on every spell and skill she had to see the mission through all while silently praying that the spell would hold and they could claim the body, and its gear, without being noticed. Despite her focus, she couldn't help but give an occasional look at the treant. It was a being she had heard of, one of thousands of magical and semi-magical entities in the records she had studied as a youth. Yet nothing in the descriptions and image captures had come close to preparing her to witness an ancient oak moving about on its own.

When they reached the body, she slid off Cy'ril's back and quickly slung in onto his shoulders, gave a look for anything important that might have fallen off in the battle that killed him or since, and leapt up to settle behind him. It was reflex that had her squeeze her knees to urge Cy'ril to move when she was settled, and he did so. It was only later that she hoped he didn't take offence at the signal meant for a horse.

Within moments, they were clear again, safe from the wasps and with a broken, stinking body to take back to search. On the ride, Felina was able to get a better look at its condition; it was Narin all right, and he'd clearly taken multiple beatings in the course of whatever he was trying to do. In the pocket of his robes, where there was no chance that the massive treant would have ever been able to retrieve it, was a crumpled chapbook filled with notes. Fortunately, the thin leather cover had protected the pages within from the worst of decay's various unpleasant leavings. She would have to wait to look through the notes, work to translate them, but at least it was a sign of hope.

"Are you sure he's truly dead?" Cy'ril asked Felina once they were well clear of the grove. "I can still feel the stink of his magic."

Felina took a moment to weave her power from Shelar and check. Like the wolf, this body was beaten too badly to move even if it was animated. Even so, she relaxed slightly when the results came back. "He is truly dead. The stink is likely his equipment, or remains of the poison on him. Better news is that there's a notebook. I can't be sure until I can translate it, but it's likely to be on whatever he was working on. What created this nightmare."

"Good. This has cost too much already. Whatever he was planning, it could never mean anything good for the living. It's just a pity he didn't suffer more. The Heartwood likely won't last another month, from what I saw. And when he turns, the forest itself will quickly follow. I fear that his is the source of whatever Narin has done."

"From all I have seen and heard, I agree," Felina said as they approached the dryad's grove. "I may not be able to do much but keep the effects at bay for a few like Miri until help arrives, but this notebook will speed his research a great deal."


	3. Summoning Narin

That had marked the end of her sojourn into the Faewood for the day. Felina spent the next two weeks in the most frustrating part of her job; the 'sit and research' phase. Every night she would pray to Shelar for guidance and good fortune, before blessing as much holy water as she could. In the morning, she would have breakfast, take the previous night's work, and go to deliver the precious liquid to Cy'ril and Moonshadow.

Then it was back to the Nixie's Nest to take up the laborious work of trying to decode Narin's notes.

The first day had been spent futilely hoping that he was simply using an obscure runic system for his transcription. Those hopes had been deflated when the most coherent message she could tease out of the books had been "Three bloods make cheese," and even that assumed Narin was familiar with three different rune systems and transcribed his notes in orcish. That meant it was more likely that the "runes" he had used were some sort of pictographic cypher. Fortunately, she'd lucked out on discovering three words crabbed into the corner of the first page under a bloodstain, "Mother's golden glyph."

Many Inquisitors would have taken it as a reference to an ancient coding system built around Elar's holy texts, but Felina knew Narin better than that. The necromancer had been brilliant in his twisted way, but he'd never been one for religious studies. He had, however, had a noblewoman for a mother, whose signet ring he still wore. Inspecting the ring, Felina had found that the signet could be detached, and that the underside was etched with minute copies of the runes that Narin had likely come to know by heart as a purely written language before his death.

Why he would include such a note in his own book, given his familiarity with the symbols, was a mystery that Felina had pushed to the back of her mind as she spent the rest of that first week transcribing the symbols into something more comprehensible. Unfortunately, even in more familiar letters she couldn't read it directly, and the next week had been spent bent over a pair of books on cryptography that the Elkin family had been kind enough to lend her from their private library, attempting to suss out how the paranoid mage had obscured his research.

By the start of the third week, nine days after she had started her research, Felina was beginning to wonder if the Order would be willing to pay to have a royal mage brought down from the capitol with a translation spell. Her back and head ached from days spent hunting for any shred of a clue Narin might have left in his notes. The holy water she was preparing, another gallon of which was waiting to be hauled to the forest, was barely holding the poison at its current progress through the victims that were being treated. And while treatment was being given to those who were identified, it wasn't enough to stop the spread through the land itself.

With these heavy thoughts in mind, Felina was in a foul mood as she prepared to get some breakfast. At least there was that bright spot in her day; hot food, prepared by people who could actually cook. For a brief time, she could leave behind the gnawing worry that the poison would spread to the town next, and the disturbing images that Narin had drawn of necrotizing tissue responding to whatever he'd been trying to do. For the length of a meal, three times daily, she could be among the living.

Then she'd finish, and have to tear herself away for another date with a dead madman's scribblings.

But as she started down the stairs on that ninth morning, she recognized a tune being played in the common room. It was a rapid song, plucked out on a lute she'd recognize anywhere despite having heard it only a handful of times, the music suggestive of somebody running through the woods, or galloping along a dusty road. As she came closer she heard the last verse of the song start, and knew that Shelar was smiling on her.

"A debt to the devils, Willie must pay. A debt to the devils, Willie must pay! For killing pretty Polly, and running... away...." The last words drew out, long and mournful, before the middle-aged kantin singing them broke into a final stretch on his lute, fingers flying over metal strings that gleamed silver in the early morning light. As he finished the song, he stilled the strings with the palm of his hand and brushed trimmed claws off against his traveling cloak.

"Seem to remember another verse to that song," one of the woodsmen preparing for the day's work observed as he finished up his breakfast.

"Don't care for that verse, m'self," the kantin shrugged. "Sang it once, and that's plenty for me. Thank you all kindly for listening though," he smiled warmly, a look that always seemed a little out of place on the hound's naturally serious face. Replacing his lute on his back, he took a long drink of weak ale and leaned back to relax, aged eyes sparkling as he noticed Felina at the bottom of the stairs.

She offered him a polite salute as one Inquisitor to a higher ranked one and stepped the rest of the way into the room, her gaze sweeping it to see who else had come. A short, lean cinnamon tomkat caught her attention first. Whipcord thin and just as tough, the alchemist and inventor loved his work of creating new things of all kinds, and was known to fight undead just as ardently so he could get back to it.

She'd definitely lucked out that they'd both been at the Moon Bay fort; short of taking the notebook there, she couldn't think of anybody who'd be better qualified to help decode it and use it for a cure.

"Felina! It's been a while," the kantin said cheerfully, indicating a free seat at their table. "Let's catch up on things."

"There is much to catch up on Dahnner," she said as she sat. "Good morn, Jake."

"Mornin'," Jake grinned at her. "At least you got lucky and stuck in a town with a good cook."

"That I did, and friendly LEOs, and a good relationship with the local fae," Felina nodded. "I don't suppose you've been warned about Kip?"

"We both have. And that she's married," Dahnner chuckled. "Not the strangest town we've seen, but certainly up there. So, I understand that your quary didn't get away after leaving us a mess to clean up this time."

"No. The treant beat him to something of a pulp," she nodded. "Fortunately along with the mess, he left us his notebook."

Jake perked up sharply. "Any samples?"

"Not of any quality," she shook her head. "There's probably some on his robes, but it's badly mixed with death-fluids and deteriorated by a week of decomp."

"Always the case," Jake grumbled. "One of these days they'll send me to a case where there's a lab left."

"But if there was a lab, you probably wouldn't be needed that badly," she teased him lightly.

"Maybe we can get a sample ourselves," Dahnner told him. "We'll figure out something to get you some work to do. But first, I want to get a look at that notebook. Also, you said in your message that you were hoping to recover a body; was the jaw still intact?"

"It's fractured, but not pulverized. He should be able to talk if we repair it," Felina answered seriously. "His notebook is intact, but even with his partial cipher, It's been a painful two weeks with limited progress."

"We'll take a look at it after breakfast then, and after we see how much work we have to do to pin the jaw back together," Dahnner promised her. "Decoding is always a pain in the tail, but hopefully we'll get something out of him to help with it. Did you ever get a chance to actually interact with him while he was alive, beyond the usual?"

"Not even the usual," she shook her head with a grumbling sigh. "The closest I ever got was an hour behind him. Kat had good survival instincts when it came to Inquisitors."

"That's suggestive in and of itself," Dahnner pointed out. "He was kicked out of town here, but he's normally got enough sense to avoid being detected _and_ avoid us? That means he was probably looking for something in the forest. That narrows down the field of his research, especially given what we know about the effects."

"Any indication how much of an alchemist he was?" Jake asked her as the crowd started to thin out, and her own breakfast was brought out.

"Umm, I'd say little better than I am, despite his penchant for poisons and potions," she thought about it. "He's never used the more advanced alchemical options, even when they would have been more effective."

"Useful to know," Jake reassured her. "I know you're not an expert, but it helps to have some idea of what I should expect. Your reports on him never mentioned finding the major gear, like alchemical retorts and stills, so I had a feeling that was probably the case. If he hasn't tried using quicksilver or anything similar against you, then I'd say you're probably right.

"He hasn't," Felina confirmed.

"Right. I'll know for sure after looking through his notebook; there's some work that would just be standard information, but practically every wizard I know who figures them out acts like they've just unlocked the secrets of the gods themselves." He rolled his eyes. "But given what he has accomplished, it'll still be fascinating to see what he has. I just hope they won't make me burn it afterwards."

"Even if they do, you'll know what's in it," she pointed out with a knowing look. "This is the kind of thing I wouldn't want anyone to know how to do, but a cure without knowing the disease isn't all that useful either. Either way, I hope you have better luck in making sense of it than I have." She shifted her focus to Dahnner. "Holy water does a great deal of good in halting the progress. I make as much as I can each night, then deliver it to the Knights to spread to the most important locations. An extra gallon or two a day would be very useful."

"That much of a priest, I'm not," he admitted. "But I'll see what I can do in terms of getting the local church to kick in some help; I can be very persuasive, even with the most skinflint of Elarans." He gave her a wink that said she'd have at least some additional to deliver for certain.

"I've actually been working on a way to get the same benefits without needing divine magic," Jake offered. "I can get a test batch brewing up, though I don't know for sure how effective it will be against the poison. I've mostly been working on ways to distill positive energy out of dew of lunary, silver, and ginger extract, it's showing a lot of promise. Slower than magic, but if the process works in small batches...." The cinnamon tom caught himself before he got into full-on lecture mode, blushing a bit beneath his fur. "It's got promise," he repeated.

"I'm sure it does," Dahnner agreed, reaching around to give Jake a gentle scratch on the scruff of his neck. "I'm assuming that's today's delivery?" He asked, indicating the jug that Felina had next to her. "And who are these Knights?"

"Not even the locals had seen them before they arrived," Felina got a look on her face that spoke of being rather awed herself. "This part might be best left to a closed room."

"Would you like to make your delivery and then meet us up there?" Dahnner offered. "Or talk first, then taking the water to the forest?"

"I'll ask Lefty to deliver it, along with news of your arrival as why I'm not there," she decided after a glance around the room. "He's lovers with one of the victims. If you could take my plate and mug up with you."

"Will do," Jake nodded, taking the plate and mug and getting ready to go up along with Dahnner. Felina passed the holy water and her explanation along to Lefty, and then followed them up, showing them to her temporary quarters where Jake sat down her breakfast and promptly sat himself down over the encoded notebook to investigate the sketches and diagrams inside.

Felina nudged her notes into the periphery of his line of sight and sat down on the small bed to finish eating, her mug on the nightstand. She motioned Dahnner to sit where he pleased, though other than the floor, the foot of the bed was about it. "The Knights are unicorns. I've met five now, including two that are black with silver manes."

He whistled lowly, shaking his head slowly.

"Woof. These woods are important to them! I saw one once, a white one, but I've never seen a group of them before. Of course, with this situation, I imagine they're all trying to figure out a cure. Probably why they were so willing to expose themselves."

"That, and hearing a gunshot while we were trying to help one of the victims," Felina agreed. "The Sheriff's gun went off in the scuffle."

"Ah. Yes, they're not very fond of guns, for obvious reasons," Dahnner agreed. "Still, that's quite impressive, and potentially very helpful."

"It gives us a last-ditch possibility for a cure," Jake admitted, pulling on a jeweler's lens to more carefully inspect something in the notebook. "I'd hate to have to use it though, and I can't imagine they're very crazy about the idea either. Any idea if they're being affected by the poison?"

"I know they can be," she nodded. "Though it was by multiple direct injections by infected and undead giant wasps. From what I've gathered, Narin came here looking for a treant, which he found. While it beat him to death, he managed to inject the poison into it. From there the poison was fed into the water and land around it, and has been spreading since. It seems to enter into animals by drinking. We don't know if it kills them outright and then converts them, though it's likely given the state of a dryad called Miri. I cast delay poison and two measures of holy water and it only just brought her back to sane."

"Nasty," Jake frowned. "Impressively nasty, especially since it crosses the animal-plant barrier despite having some sort of apparent animal-toxin basis. No nerves or blood in plants, after all. Maybe why the treant was needed?"

"Jake? Maybe translation, instead of working on the sketches?" Dahnner suggested.

"Oh, from what I saw in the translation, I'd guess he wrote it in Necril," Jake replied casually. "Try decrypting it with a basic...." He glanced at the notes again. "Plus four substitution matrix, I think? Is it 't' or 's' that's most common in Necril?"

"'S,'" Dahnner told him. "At least if he's using Old Necril. It's been shifting gradually over the centuries, incorporating more common-tongue."

"Ugh, that could be ugly then," Jake admitted. "But try the plus four, just in case it's still Old Necril."

"It doesn't look like Old Necril," Felina commented with a frown. "I'm not completely fluent, but its glyph system is completely different from ours."

"Think spoken Old Necril written down with common's glyphs," Dahnner told her. "It's not something anyone who didn't spend more time in the archives than the field would know. Not even most Necromancers use it."

"But it's the sort of thing a necro who didn't want to go to the trouble of trying to write the runes and then invent a new code to hide them would do," Jake pointed out. "He already had a cypher that he probably knew by heart, why invent a new one and keep having to double-check your work to make sure you didn't write that you're supposed to use one part sulphur to two magnesium when it's the other way around? Especially working with poisons as much as he did, I imagine his life'd get pretty interesting pretty fast if he got his proportions wrong."

"All right, I'll give you that," Dahnner admitted, looking over the notes briefly. "It is possible, it's just going to take a bit to be sure. Maybe start by picking out a section with a lot of shorter words, see if they make any sense when we test it. Narin wasn't part of a cabal, was he? It never came up in your reports."

"There's never been any hint of it since either," Felina shook her head. "If he was working for or with anyone, they kept very quiet about it."

"Well, I hope that's the case, because what I'm looking at is disturbingly brilliant," Jake frowned. "It's not that different from most zombie powders, but it looks like he infused the sources with necromantic energies before harvesting them. I'd love to pick this guy's brain, if it wasn't already maggot food. Could've moved my research ahead a solid year or more."

" _Your_ research?" Felina tried not to choke. "The Church authorized research into making zombies?"

"Wha- _no_!" Jake turned to look at her like she was the crazy one. "But he's found some way to produce a biological source of a reanimation potion, from the look of it. If I could find a way to replicate the process with my formula for holy water without needing a priest or priestess to bless it? It might be possible to create plants or animals that have it flowing through them, or even a way to make people immune to whatever it is that brings them back."

"That ... would be amazing," Felina murmured, nearly as shocked by his intentions as the original thought. "It'd drastically reduce the workload."

"Exactly. _That's_ what I was talking about. Of course, that's all _really_ down the line yet. I'm still working with herbs and silver solutions, not exactly the best thing to try and get people to produce naturally in their bodies," he admitted. "A pity he had to be a psychopath."

"For more reasons that just that," Felina agreed. "Any idea how long it'll be before you can finish translating?"

"Probably a few days... enough time for you two to work on putting the skull back together and getting me some hints," Jake said, pulling up his bag. "Before you go, you'll want these." He pulled out a leather wrap, not unlike what some of the tomb breakers she'd met used to keep their tools safe, and passed it over. "Reconstruction kit. Silver pins, etched with various wards to keep him from trying anything too stupid, and a tube of bonepaste to fill in any missing chunks. Just don't get the paste on anything wooden, it kind of eats through plant matter."

"Understood," Felina nodded seriously and accepted the bag. "We'll leave you to your work until I kick you to your own room so I can sleep."

"Heh - as if you'll sleep with Dahnner around," Jake teased as they started out.

"He should know perfectly well that I'm a slut for purely religious reasons," the kantin sniffed with mock offense as he straightened out his vest. "Now, let's go see about putting that skull back together. Does the Sheriff have it? His jail would seem the safest place to me."

"He does," Felina nodded. "Is there much chance he'll come back?"

"No, not if we do this right," Dahnner reassured her. "Not unless he's playing some sort of long game and already is back. Though I expect we'll have some company to keep an eye on things, just in case. The local Glorythieves always like to see if I'll screw it up, no matter where I go," he grumbled.

"They like messing with all of us," Felina agreed with a grumble of their own as she showed him to the sheriff's office. The head was in a bag and buried where the wolf had been, the rest of the body long since burned.

"Well, in this one case I'll grant that they might have their hearts in the right place. Still, you'd think they could leave the undead hunting to the professionals. The only time I've had a spell go wrong, it was put right before I left, and without their help at that. They've got one thing they have us beat at, and you'd think vampires were the be all and end all of true undead threats because of it," he groused, picking up the shovel.

"So, I'm guessing it's the smaller hole here he's under," he said, starting to dig up Narin's buried head. "Did you boil the flesh off before burying it, or leave it on?"

"Had the tanner boil it clean in holy water in exchange for helping him sell the wolf's hide," Felina confirmed. "I didn't particularly care to smell what was left if we didn't, and I knew we'd need to get the skin off to reconstruct the bone either way."

"Good girl," Dahnner said approvingly. She knew it was legitimate praise as well, from the older Inquisitor; few reached his age while still being active in the field, rather than having taken a safer post while waiting for specific assignments. The fact that he was only in his forties was grim commentary on the lifespan of her colleagues, but if she reached the point he was already at, she'd count herself quite lucky.

"Now, open up that pack Jake gave you, find a cell, and make sure the pins are sorted by length," Dahnner instructed her as he kept digging. "There'll also be a small, fine pliers in there. I'll need that to make sure this doesn't go all wrong on us. I'll show you a couple of the finer tricks of this, while we're at it," he grinned over at her, unearthing the bag and joined her in the cell where she was busy checking the kit and laying the contents out.

"All ready," she said from a spot sitting on the floor in front of the bed platform they could use as a workbench.

The first thing Dahnner did on looking at the jaw was to sort and count the teeth that were loose, and those still in the bone.

"This is something we only used to run into once in a great while when I was starting out," he explained. "Necromancers who wanted to make sure they didn't get interrogated after death, or whose employers wants to make sure of it, would install a false tooth filled with a potent acid. When they were sure they would be killed or captured, they'd break it. Always fatal, but it would dissolve the lower jaw as well. We've actually seen it twice in the last year that I've seen reports of though." He gingerly inspected each of the remaining teeth with the long-nosed pliers as he talked.

"Good odds it would have been broken during the fight, with the shape his head's in, but I want to make sure either way. The only thing worse than losing the jaw when you try to do your interrogation is losing a part of your hand with it. I saw that happen once... terrible thing, cost a good man his career," he admitted. "Got the bastard who did it while he was still alive though, and managed to interrogate him all the same. Remember the story of Dobri Half-head?" He laughed with entirely too much vicious glee. "He's the fucker who inspired it."

"That supposed zombie in the Academy basement? Scared the pants off me when I was a kit, but I always kept going back. Something about it I just couldn't ignore," she chuckled, then sobered. "Uncle liked to tell me that I'd have been a necromancer if I wasn't an Inquisitor. Far too interested in the undead at far too young an age." She went quiet for a bit as she watched him finish inspecting the teeth. "I shouldn't be surprised it's becoming more common. Effective tactics often spread quickly."

"Heh... often how it goes," Dahnner chuckled. "I found my way into it through the back door, but most good Inquisitors could have turned left instead of right, and ended up on the receiving end of our maces at some point. It's another part of the job; learning to recognize that interest, and turning it the right way. Old Dobri's what's left of the fellow after the interrogation was done though. We'd managed to subdue him using a sleeping scroll that I had on me, and he woke up while my tutor was inspecting the teeth. Looks like Narin's are clear though, so it's on to the next part. Now, what I'm going to show you here is what Jake and your Uncle like to call 'cheating,'" he winked, arranging the teeth and smaller bone fragments in the same small area. He reached into his own pack and pulled out a rolled up parchment.

Unfurling the scroll, he read off the magical words. The runes on the parchment glowed brightly, before consuming it in a bright flame. The ashes swirled around the smallest fragments, picking them up and moving them into position before binding them together magically. When the spell was finished, one side of the lower mandible had been fully reassembled.

"A mending spell can save you a lot of frustration trying to put together puzzle pieces with pulverized bone," he explained. "Some people think it's better to put in the time and work, that the spell will work better if you've put more of yourself into making sure it can be cast, but I say that's nonsense. If you can blow his chest open with buck and ball and cast the spell as soon as he hits the ground, it doesn't matter whether or not you've spent a week slaving over bone fragments trying to figure out if you were accidentally putting them in backwards."

"Makes sense to me," Felina nodded. "The personal investment would make more sense as a requirement if what you were trying to do was personal to you. This isn't."

"Exactly. Now, start looking for the parts that go together, and matching them up. When you do, use the drill to make a place for the pins and connect them. Don't worry about if they'll come apart, the bone paste can help with that," he started showing her the process and getting started on rebuilding the broken parts. "If it's too thin to drill, we'll use the paste to reconnect it entirely, just whatever you do don't touch your face with it on your fingers."

"Why?" Felina asked as she went to work, though she headed his warning immediately.

"Jake could give you the details, but what he said about getting it on wood is the main reason. It doesn't burn on fur or flesh, but it's basically powdered bone mixed with whatever gunk somebody like him thought up that'd harden like rock in a matter of minutes. I'm pretty damned sure that anything that'll burn through an inch thick oak door in less than five minutes can't be healthy to swallow or get in your eyes, and I don't want to have to explain to the Grand Marshall why his niece is on my new list of 'this is why you listen to Dahnner' tales." He winked at her, taking his own drill and getting to work on some of the smaller pieces, leaving the larger ones for her to start with.

"I have no intention of being on that list," she said agreeably.

"Thank you, I'm sure I'll live longer that way," he chuckled as the two of them settled in to the frankly dull task before them. It took them the better part of the morning to finish it, at least to the point where Dahnner was willing to call it done. By then, they had something of a small crowd wandering in and out of the jail to watch the work. Most of them were people from around town who were curious what was going on with the strangers, and why they were doing in a jail cell to do it, but a few of them were more constant fixtures.

There was always at least one guard, once they realized what was going on, and Longclaw was in more than out, working in his gunsmithing shop between checking on them. Whiteeye came in with one of the kits to help lead the way, and she settled down on a chair that was quickly brought out for her to listen. Even Kip found an excuse to check in, though she at least admitted it was because she'd never seen something like the process before. She quickly got bored and headed out, presumably to get some more fish for her pub or take care of some other chore that had suddenly become more interesting than literally watching paste dry. Even if it was paste that could dissolve the bunk they were using as a work surface.

Of course, it was also work that would have finished sooner if, once Felina had the hang of it, Dahnner hadn't shifted to a more supervisory position, carefully cleaning his hands and playing a light tune on his lute to help Mother Whiteeye pass the time waiting, but it was the best way for Felina to get used to when she'd have to do it herself some time in the future.

"I think ye've thinned the barrier enough by now, bard," Whiteeye cut in shortly after Dahnner had finished reviewing Felina's work. "Is there anything else you have to do to prepare? Or can I take a moment to make my preparations?"

"That depends on what you want to do, Mother," Dahnner said respectfully, opening up the cell door. "I'll be laying a salt circle around the skull before casting the spell, if that's your concern."

"I would think you'd prefer silver to salt," a much more educated voice cut in from the entrance. Dahnner forced a smile to his face as the local priest came into view in full regalia, a gray-furred tom wearing a brilliant robe of cloth-of-gold, embroidered with numerous emblems of the sun. His sash was similarly ostentatious, with a beautiful she-kat whose gravid belly was the sun embroidered onto either end. On top of his head, almost mocking the rest of the outfit with its simplicity, was a yellow skullcap that marked him as the Temple Father. "It would be more secure, would it not?"

"Ah, Father, I was wondering when somebody from the local temple would come around to offer their services," Dahnner replied lightly. "You're right that silver would, technically, but more secure, but it would also be far more costly, and it's not as though I'm calling the spirit of one of the dread deathlords of old, who might take his severed head and gnaw the ankles of whatever poor parishioner happened to wander by the Temple dustheap once we're done."

"You are, however, calling the spirit of a true necromancer, not merely some ... dabbler in the dark arts who needs to give you the directions to his family tomb so that you can confiscate any suspected contraband," the priest replied dryly. "I am here by Elar's will, to protect Her children from any threat that may soon walk amongst them."

"Ah, an' me without a pipe to lean back and enjoy this," Whiteeye cackled, breaking up the argument. "Two grown men, sparring like crows over a dead hare. Father, unless you intend to lay the circle yourself, I'm satisfied with salt. I saw that blackguard out of town while he was alive without doing more than throwing a fit. If an old hag like myself, a Priest, _two_ Inquisitors _and_ the Sheriff with his great thundering weapons, can't deal with the damned fool's spirit, then he _deserves_ t'come back an' bring about the Age of Darkness."

"I would hardly joke about such matters, Whiteeye," the Priest scowled at her.

"And who says she's joking?" Longclaw asked as he stepped in from his shop, musket in hand. "I've known Mother Whiteeye since I was a kitten, Father. If she says she's fine with never feeling another sunrise, I wouldn't doubt it. I'm a bit more partial to them, myself. I've loaded with silver buck and an agracite ball, in case it's needed. If anything happens a skull shouldn't be doing, it won't be doing it for long."

"It should animate enough to talk, glow and wiggle a bit," Felina said, though to glanced at Dahnner for confirmation of her limited knowledge.

"It _might_ do more, but don't interfere unless it breaks the circle," Dahnner agreed as he spread the salt around it. "If it does act up, the odds are strongest that Narin's got enough of himself there to be an ass and not much worse than that without hands. The Ballad of Lyrnea is a classic, but she was a necromancer the likes of which hasn't been seen in centuries, and had been a lich for most of two thousand years before that. Besides, I rather strongly suspect that any spells Narin knew that he could cast without arms probably went along with most of his brain matter."

"If that mattered, I doubt you'd be calling his spirit back to interrogate," the Father observed. Dahnner rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"If we weren't dealing with actual lives here, I'd put the fear of Shelar into him," he muttered as he sat down across from the skull, taking up his lute. "If he does break the circle, Felina, and the Sheriff misses, you might try taking to him with my mace instead of yours." He reached down and unhitched it from his hip, passing it over. It was smaller than hers, lighter, but crafted of a solid piece of agracite, the haft wound with leather, eight flanges coming off at the stations of the moon, each coming to a deadly edge that would easily shatter the still-fragile skull. "My arm's getting too old to get a good swing in, but you've got the muscle to put behind that and make it count."

"That is a strike I can do well," she agreed grimly as she settled the mace where she'd grab it instinctively in case of trouble. "It's effective far too often to not keep in practice."

Dahnner nodded, and then focused on the spell, beginning to play steadily, rhythmically, and singing softly.

"There's a little black carriage coming, set your business right! For the little black coach is coming, to call for you tonight...."

He picked up the pitch and volume, creating the audible impression of a carriage rounding the bend, horses louder as the wheels bumped along the road, ever drawing closer to its destination.

"Go tell that laughing lady, all filled with worldly pride, that the little black coach is coming, get ready to take a ride!"

Another uptick in the pitch and volume, and as he played there seemed to be a wind through the cell, the eyes of the skull glowing faintly while Dahnner repeated the chorus and started the next verse.

"Come forth oh souls in torment, to share your secrets dark, 'fore the little black carriage takes you, to roll to the judgment bar!"

Another uptick, almost painful this time as he choked off the strings of the lute at a high pitch, singing almost so loud that it hurt.

"There's a little black carriage coming, get ready to take a ride! The little black coachman's hunting, he'll call for you tonight!"

Then, in an instant, silence as Dahnner slapped his hands over the strings to still them, somehow almost creating the sound of a coach lurching to a halt in front of the jail. The empty sockets of Narin's eyes were glowing with a malignant red now, and the jaw opened as though it in a yawn before a string of hissing, sibilant syllables poured out.

"What is it you want, Inquisitors?" Narin's spirit demanded in Old Necril. The Father placed his hand over the holy symbols embroidered into his sash, as though seeking strength from them, as Whiteeye and Longclaw both just watched carefully. "Let's get this over with! I've bargains to keep beyond the veil."

Felina blinked, surprised by both the words and the implications behind it. No one, nothing she'd encountered was so eager to leave the living world. "What bargains?" came out before she could remind herself of the intended purpose of the summoning.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Narin taunted her. "You're not the one who summoned me!"

"But I am," Dahnner replied in the same tongue, strumming the strings of his lute with a claw. Narin hissed in apparent pain, his eyes flickering. "Speak in Necril for now, Felina," Dahnner warned, his eyes darting to their observers. "We may want to keep parts of this to ourselves. Now, as she asked - what bargains are you talking about?"

"Forgotten and forsaken my family may be," Narin replied cryptically, "but we shall rule in the Necropolis for my aid. Even incomplete, my work is too far along to stop now."

"You think your concoctions will let you overthrow the Pale Eye?" Dahnner snorted.

"I think that He shall be grateful!" Narin's face may have been nothing but skull, but Felina could swear he was sneering at them. "And have far more pressing matters than watching over the souls of the unsorted fallen, after I show so many the way to His realm."

"Why were you seeking the treant?" Felina asked, focusing on what they needed to know to save the town.

"You saw the wolf, I assume. I could feel its failure dripping all around me. The black should spread, like water through the soil. Instead, all I could get was that. A poison for one victim, that evaporates before it can take any others. The treant's sap should have bound it together, held it longer so that it could do its proper work. I imagine my body wasn't very pretty, by the time the wolf was done with it."

Felina glanced at Dahnner, bewildered for a second before her ears perked up with comprehension and she turned back to face the skull. She could only assume that Narin's lack of knowledge past his death was to their advantage. "Did you develop a cure for your poison?"

"Oh, of course, because when you're planning to send nations screaming into the afterlife, the first thing you want to do is figure out how to counteract all of your hard work," Narin replied sarcastically.

"I can see why you wanted to bring him in to be hung," Dahnner observed dryly. "He's such a charming soul. You said you needed the treant's sap to bind the poison together. How did you plan on getting it?"

"Do I look like my plan worked, whatever it was?" Narin retorted. "The venoms didn't work the way they should have; they should have killed the treant so the magic could reanimate it. It was a gamble, but the best shot I had without the old witch's help. Her little brat could have gotten it for me without a fight! She didn't even give me a chance to say what I wanted before she started screeching at me, the senile old bat."

Felina chuckled, then sobered. "Who in this world were you working for?"

"Why do you think I was working with anyone? I serve higher masters than any you imagine," Narin replied levelly.

"Because your 'higher masters' have notoriously tight purse strings," Dahnner growled. "Who was paying for your work? You didn't travel across half the known world looking for ingredients by picking up odd jobs along the way, or find the one place in the world a treant wouldn't sic the forest on any approaching mortal by chance."

"I had a rich uncle, dearly departed. Now, send me on my way! I've nothing else to tell you."

"I doubt that," Dahnner sighed, strumming his lute again. Narin hissed, but remained defiant as ever.

"You're not getting anything more out of me, Inquisitors! Do as you will, I'll not challenge that which is beyond."

"Worth trying to force him to give up the translation keys to his notebook?" Felina asked Dahnner as she fingered his mace.

"I can only force a fairly simple answer out of him, but we can get closer," Dahnner explained. "And I'm not giving up on finding out more about this 'rich uncle' of his."

"You may as well," Narin retorted. "Not even the likes of you can kill what's never lived."

"You've never seen what's left of the Colossus of Mateitna."

"Actually, I have. Shoddy work, more notable for its scale than the creator's skill, whoever the lunatic was. And I'm the one calling him that," Narin pointed out with a barking laugh. "Its parts lived, once. Even golems lived once, their stone and clay ripped from the living earth. But that which was never born can never die, Inquisitor, and lies beyond either of our realms."

"Sounds fascinating. Now, before I decide if I'm going to release your spirit or turn your skull over to the Glorythief there to use as a decorative prop for his sermons with you in it, why don't you tell us how you encoded the notebook? We already found your signet ring and the code on the bottom."

"You can get fucked! That work is mine," his glowing red eye sockets flared up with anger, "and I won't turn it over so easily!"

"Then don't make it easy," Felina purred darkly in a rare show of the temper her uncle was infamous for. Hers wasn't explosive yet, but it was just as violent when roused. "But either you will tell or Jake will decode it. It's just a matter of what happens first."

"I watched a worm-fiend defile itself with my father's corpse in exchange for my first spellbook. Whatever you've seen, it pales in comparison to what I've wrought, and that burns you inside, doesn't it?" He taunted her.

She cocked her head at him. "That makes you one piss-poor mage then, doesn't it? Though it does explain how much trouble you had trying to get rid of me. Jack of many trades, skilled at none."

"Stay your hand, Felina," Dahnner warned her. "One question, Narin, and I'll be done with your codes. Jake's more than smart enough to unravel them himself, but I want to know if you've trapped the book.

"That depends," Narin said smugly. "Is it really a 'trap' if it's mostly to deter that disgusting habit of licking your fingers while you read?"

"Is the poison still active?" Felina asked, though she suspected the answer. Any poison that hadn't affected her yet was unlikely to be potent enough to harm anyone.

"What sort of an amateur do you take me for?" Narin shot back at her. "I know better than to mix something with the ink that would be neutralized by it!"

"I'm also starting to see why he didn't pose a greater threat while you were hunting him," Dahnner admitted in his own native tongue. "Luckier than he was smart, wasn't he?"

"Clearly. Just lucky enough to be a royal pain in the tail," she replied dryly in the same, then switched to Necril to address Narin. "How long before the poison takes affect?"

"Well, _that_ depends on how much of it he gets in him, and on whether or not he's one of those lucky bastards who happens to be immune," Narin grumbled. "Long before he's finished translating it, I'm sure."

Felina relaxed. She had many skills and a few uncommon advantages beyond an advanced education and growing up among Inquisitors, but immunity to poisons were not among of them. If it hadn't made her sick yet, there was no way it was still potent. She'd warn Jake and check herself all the same.

"You realize he speaks, reads and writes the same language we're using right now, probably better than either of us do, right?" Dahnner asked him. The lack of response was about all the answer they needed.

"Anything else you want to know before I send him back?" The kantin asked Felina.

Felina considered it for a lingering moment, then shook her head. "He's already refused to answer the one question I still want the answer for: who he worked with in this world."

"Very well. You're free to go, Narin. I suggest you find your way back to the afterlife before the Riders come looking to see why you're back in this realm already. Enjoy your stay in the Necropolis, if that's where the Gods decide to put you. I'd be more inclined to send you down into the bowels of the Abyss myself. Put your talent for poisons to good use... and see if you can find your father."

If Narin had been capable of doing so, Felina was sure he would have gulped before the lights in his eyes went out, indicating the end of the spell.

"Well? Is it over with?" Longclaw asked them. "Did he give you a cure?"

"Frankly, I don't think he'd have known what to use as one if he'd wanted to," Dahnner admitted. "He told us more than he wanted to, though I doubt even he knew it at the time. Gods, I hate dealing with self-important pricks who think they're smarter than everybody else."

"Part and parcel of the job," Felina said as she shifted to hand his mace back. "We've made progress, and most importantly we know that he considered his poison a complete failure at the time of his death. What we're dealing with here is all there is of it. In practical terms we're still holding it in check and waiting for Jake to translate and work his special brand of magic to create the cure. He's already made more progress than I did in two weeks."

"Well, I certainly hope that it was worth the risk for _whatever_ information you got from him," the Father harrumphed. "I'll be at the temple, preparing in case this gets out of hand."

"Don't sound so eager, Father," Whiteeye laughed. "Sheriff? If one of your guards could be spared, I'd appreciate a hand getting out. I left one of the kits outside, they don't need to see all of this," she explained as she stood up carefully. "But they will need to help me home. Ah! Before I go though," she pulled out two more parchment squares and held them out for Felina. "For your new companions, just in case they have to join you in the woods."

"Thank you, Mother Whiteeye," she said with a warm smile and private pleasure in watching the way the Father bristled at the honorific typically reserved for his Order.

"Ugh, I just hope he's not the one with the key to the water font," Dahnner groaned once the two had left. "Apologies, Sheriff, but he's exactly the sort of Elaran I can't stand, and having to trade with him for holy water is going to be torture in _so_ many ways."

"He takes gold the same as any other priest I've known," Longclaw shrugged, tipping his musket to empty it of the frankly expensive ammunition he'd loaded. "Shouldn't be that hard to buy some extra, if what the three of you can prepare isn't enough."

"I rarely deal in gold, Sheriff," Dahnner winked. "I _do_ hope that isn't a problem in this town?"

"Just... just don't get in trouble, I don't want to have to deal with the mess that would cause," the Sheriff decided. "Is there anything in there that shouldn't be touched?" He asked, indicating the cell.

"We'll clean it up, but no," Dahnner reassured him. "Everything's perfectly safe in there now."

"Thanks," the sheriff said and left them to clean up, grateful not to have to deal with it.

"You could ply your holy trade with citizens for coin, and use that with the Elaran," Felina said as they went to work with quick efficiency.

"Oh, I know, I just like to remind them they've got sex lives too once in a while. For worshippers of the Mother, it's amazing how many of them need the stick pulled out of their asses before something else goes in."

Felina laughed heartily at that. "So very true."


	4. Battle of the Wasps

The next few days were much like the past weeks, though quicker and easier for Felina to weather. With Jake and Dahnner helping, large portions of Narin's notes quickly became understandable, at least in the basics. The threat of poison was evidently an idle one, whether Narin had known it or not, though Jake had been wearing gloves when they'd gotten back, guessing that there might be something troublesome about the book.

And while it still wasn't a cure, Dhanner apparently did find somebody at the temple he could stand 'bargaining' with for some extra holy water, adding a few more pints to the daily delivery to the Knights.

Soon though, Jake was satisfied with his translation, and what he'd been able to gather from it.

"I want to come with you today, when you drop off the holy water," he told Felina when she was up. "I _think_ I might be able to effect a cure by blending the holy water with a batch of general antitoxins that I've been brewing while I worked. But if that doesn't work, then we're going to have to do some more field research, rather than trusting Narin's notes. I'll need some way to undo whatever changes happened when he injected the treant."

"Given its condition, I think starting with Miri the Dryad would be good," Felina suggested. "She's in far better shape, and not guarded by a swarm of undead giant wasps able in inject the poison."

"Oh, I'm with you there, but I've got a few surprises for the wasps if we need them," Jake grinned wickedly, patting the satchel he'd brought with him to her room. "I modified my smokestick recipe so that they release a thick holy water fog instead. It won't be concentrated enough to harm most undead, but it should be enough to keep the wasps _very_ unhappy with us, and not able to do anything about it. I also modified my bombs with a kicked-up version of the recipe for Dawnstar Flowers, so either way, I think we'll be going down to the pond. Either to try a cure, or to get something I can make one with."

"Understood," Felina nodded as she finished getting her armor settled and did a final check on her weapons and equipment. She was still a bit wary of the pond. The wasps had killed and turned a _unicorn_. "You both have your wards? I doubt any fae would cause trouble for us given our cause and company, but it doesn't hurt."

"We have them, though I'm still not so sure about not looking to see what they are," Jake admitted.

" _After_ we need them, Jake," Dahnner chuckled, putting a hand on the tom's shoulder. "It may just be superstition, but half of what we do is based in exactly that."

"Half of what _you_ two do, maybe," Jake countered good-naturedly. "The only superstition around my work is 'it's bad luck to carry matches and fuse wire in the same bag.' So, let's go meet this dryad, see how she's doing and if I can help her do any better."

"When a local _gives_ you such things and only asks that you not open them in exchange, you humor them if you can," Felina added firmly. "It doesn't pay to irritate the local wise woman, friendly mage or friendly priest."

Jake rolled his eyes but nodded and they headed downstairs. Felina collected the sheriff and Chance and they all headed to Miri's grove where she usually met Cy'ril after a good breakfast and collecting a packed lunch from Madge.

When they arrived, they found Cy'ril at the base of Miri's oak, looking up into it with what could only be described as an irritated expression for a horse. He said something in the language the fae used that made the Sheriff take pause, though Dahnner just sighed and shook his head.

"The worst part of treating the chronically ill; when they start to wonder if the treatment's worth it," he explained. "Apparently she's being difficult about coming out today, from what I caught there."

"Fortunately we can treat the tree if worst comes to worst and she can't be brought out," Felina sighed, then gave a sweet whistle to catch Cy'ril's attention. "We've made good progress," she smiled at him as they walked up. "Jake believes he has a cure."

"No, I _do_ have a cure," Jake corrected her. "I just don't know if what I have is the final cure, or if I need one more ingredient. But I think we also have a way to make it not hurt as badly to take it," he said, glancing at Dahnner. The Kantin nodded and pulled his lute free.

"I've got just the thing," he promised, starting to play a gentle lullaby that Felina remembered from her own kittenhood while Jake worked at fine tuning his blend, pulling out a flask of holy water and one of the antitoxin, setting out a small bowl in front of him and starting to blend them together. After a few minutes, curiosity got the better of the sick dryad, and she emerged from the tree like she was sliding through a tight, invisible crevice in it. Jake glanced up at her, giving her a faint smile before turning back to his work.

"If I could have one of those leaves, with the black veins in it?" He asked. Chance got a nod from Miri before plucking one for Jake to examine. The smaller kat sniffed at it, then gently dipped the stem of the leaf into his mix. It steamed faintly, but that apparently wasn't the reaction Jake was after. He added more holy water to the mix, and then a handful of some sort of large-grain salt he poured out of a small phial. The entire reaction started to bubble, as though he'd put it on top of a high flame. Miri knelt across from it, apparently fascinated by what he was doing.

Felina smiled, delighted that they'd lured her out and relaxing to the music as she stood near Cy'ril and watched him work with just as much fascination as Miri. It was the first time she'd witnessed a true master alchemist at work and her curiosity was locked onto it.

After a few moments, the pale green liquid's bubbling slowed as it shifted colors through a foggy teal before settling into a deep gray-blue. Jake put a small filter on the rim of the bowl, and poured the blue liquid back into the flask, keeping back the now-yellow salts within.

"Without my full lab I can't make a more precise blend, but that would take a solid month and a draft team to haul out here," he admitted. "That, or paying off the local brewer to stop working for a few weeks while I experiment. Either way, not very practical. But I think I've got the key parts of the antitoxin in here, along with the holy water, and it shouldn't have the same emetic effects that it would have otherwise."

"The what?" Miri asked.

"It shouldn't make you feel as sick to your stomach," Jake explained. "But I want to put it on your tree, instead of having you drink it. The reaction heats it up a lot, like you saw, and I don't want you to get burned trying to drink it." He smiled at her slightly, then gave an awkward shrug. "That, and it'll probably taste like you're trying to swallow hot pine ash mixed with bitter almonds. Not _that_ far off from the truth. You've got a big advantage, not having to _taste_ everything you take in. You... might want to lie down or something, I don't know how much this will hurt."

"Focus on my song," Dahnner suggested as she moved to curl up against Cy'ril's side. Felina offered her hand to hold as Jake walked to her tree and began pouring the concoction around the roots, focusing on a circle than began a full two paces outside the visible trunk.

"Is it supposed to tingle like that?" Miri asked.

"To be honest, I don't know," Jake admitted. "I've never used these antidotes on the fae before, especially not through a tree, but it is possible that it could feel that way."

"It doesn't hurt as much as it usually does," the Squirrel offered. "Tastes like somebody buried copper and cobalt around the roots."

"I think that's a good thing," Jake reassured her, though Felina caught the surprise on his face when she mentioned the taste. "It should absorb more gradually like this; it will last longer, but hopefully not hit as hard all at once. Can you tell what it is that's against your roots?" He asked her, newly fascinated with his patient.

"Well, you can tell what you're eating, right?" She asked him back, only wincing a bit and wrapping her arms around herself uncomfortably. "It's... ugh... it's the same type of thing."

Jake turned to the tree, watching the leaves carefully as he pulled out his jeweler's loupe and put it on to watch for any tiny signs of improvement.

"Yes, but I've never known somebody who could pick out anything better than 'metallic' when they tasted those," Jake explained. "Even after the brimstone has precipitated to the bottom. But I use lapis and kobold stone in the blend, along with the charcoal and a few other things. I've never been able to get all the impurities out of the lapis without using chemical smelting though, so that's where the copper inclusions usually come from... we're seeing some promising results in the capillary action," he added. The expression on Miri's face was clearly that of somebody who didn't especially care at the moment, being more focused on the increasing discomfort brought on by the treatment. "It looks like we're starting to get the natural... dammit!" He snarled. "No you don't! I am not letting that low-grade buffoon beat me this easily...." He turned back to his kit, grabbing ingredients left and right and starting to mix them together. "Maybe some sort of solvent...."

"Jake, she's not going to die on us immediately," Felina spoke up. "We can get samples from the source work with so she doesn't have to taste it. _Invisibility to Undead_ works well against the wasps."

"Huh? Oh, right," he said, stopping as Felina interrupted him. "Sorry, I get a little focused sometimes... and we do have those new toys to test out on the wasps too." He sighed and repacked his gear.

"I think I have the mix right, but the compound it's trying to break up is too resilient at this point. From what I saw of the notes, I'm having the same problem that Narin was trying to fix when he started this mess. The good news is that I've got more options for how to fix it... and we're going to go try to get a sample to work with."

"How do you plan to get a sample from the Heartwood?" Cy'ril asked them cautiously.

Felina rubbed her forehead. "Debating between whether a rush and grab for a small limb, much like how we got the body out, or a more systematic removal of the wasps so it's safer to approach him more openly and use spells and potions to try and get enough sanity back to talk to him is the smarter move. Both have their risks."

"What are your thoughts on those?" Dahnner prompted her, wanting to get a better feel for her natural tactics.

"The rush and grab has worked, but it also means getting very up close and personal, and the moment I grab a limb, the wasps will be on to us. It's more likely to get us a sample with limited damage, but overall, it's riskier. Destroying the wasps does more damage and will take longer, but in the long run is likely to be safer. I'm reasonably sure there aren't more than fifty or sixty, probably fewer."

"How confident are you in your bug repellant?" Dahnner asked Jake, turning to the alchemist.

"The smoke sticks might not be enough to keep them off of us if the treant controls them," he admitted. "But I'm not sure how we'd kill them without creating a natural disaster, unless somebody here knows how to summon a swarm of holy giant bats or dragonflies."

"Do they have to be sacred ones? To this world's gods?" Cy'ril asked him. Jake looked at the black unicorn for a moment, as though surprised he was being taken seriously.

"Uhm... well, unless we wanted to risk them becoming a swarm of _undead_ bats or dragonflies... yes," he decided after a moment.

"That would be more difficult," Cy'ril admitted. "Given time, I could have a troop of night sprites brought out from the fae realm, but they would not take kindly to blessings sacred to this world's gods, and the Eldest they serve are unlikely to help in that way."

"...Would you mind sitting down for a few weeks after this is all over and trading notes?" Dahnner asked Cy'ril seriously. "I'm willing to repay the favor in a _wide_ variety of ways, and very serious."

"We may discuss the details when the forest is safe," Cy'ril agreed as he smoothly lunged to his hooves. "Which path will we take?"

"If you're willing to risk another charge so I can grab a branch, we can have the antidote more quickly," Felina said as she stood, then looked at Jake. "That _is_ all you would need, correct?"

"As long as it had sap in it," Jake nodded.

"Hang on," Chance piped up. "Green wood doesn't come off easy, and that's when it's holding still. What do you have to break it off, besides hands?" He asked Felina.

"Mace," she patted the weapon at her side. "Are you volunteering for the run?"

"I'd say I'm your best bet for it," he pointed out, pulling out his ax. "Especially if one of you can hit me with something hot before I go in, the wasps aren't very likely to want to deal with my full gear."

"What do you mean, your full gear?" Jake asked, raising an eyebrow. Chance chuckled and handed him his ax.

"My ax and belly warmer are both made out of fire-steel," he explained, jingling the chainmail inside the sash tied around his torso that served as his armor. "It's treated so that any heat flows to the outer edges. Makes fire breath hurt less, and gives me a weapon to hurt whoever used it back worse."

"Where are you from that you're fighting things that breathe fire that often?" Jake asked him, inspecting the ax's edge, and the reddish metal along the blade.

"Long story that we don't have time for now," the tabby grinned. "So, you have something in your kit that'll do the trick?"

"Depends on how suicidal you are."

"Not very," Cy'ril observed staunchly. "Remember, he'll be on _my_ back, and I won't be wearing any such armor."

"I do have a resistance to fire spell that would protect you," Felina said quietly.

"Then I'm thinking pitch and lye on the blade," Jake decided. "We give it a splash of holy water before you make the run, it should be enough to give the wasps a very unpleasant surprise when they come through the smoke at you."

"I think I missed the part where you warned me we're traveling with two homicidal lunatics," Dahnner observed under his breath to Felina.

"At least they're on our side, and talking the plan out where we can hear and temper it," she replied as the two toms got ever more excited about this experiment in fire and rushing in. "Just a minute, before you get any more excited," she eventually called out, stopping them. "We need to _not_ set the forest or treant on fire. Remember that. Cauterizing the wound is good, I expect. Setting him on fire with pitch is not."

"As long as we hit green wood, it would hurt, but not catch," Jake explained. "It's just like kindling. You have to dry all the water out of it first, and from how you described that wolf, these things don't dry out like desert mummies, even after they die. Since the treant's still alive, even if barely, it should be fine. Well, except for the missing limb."

"I can always try the run without lighting up first, then we go in with it if I can't get a piece off on the first try," Chance offered.

Felina regarded the tabby for a long, hard moment, then nodded. "Then let's go. We'll give you as much cover as we can once the wasps are after you."

"If you need to light up, just pour this over the blade," Jake told him, pulling a glass vial out of his satchel as he sat it down. "Alchemist's fire. It's a lot more unstable than the pitch and lye, so you might want to cast your spell on Cy'ril, Felina," he warned them all. He strapped two bandoliers across his chest, loading the straps on one with assorted vials of fluids, and hanging small clay vessels off the other. He also passed out one thick black cylinder to each of them.

"When the wasps come for you, crack that open to slow them down," he explained. "I make all my field gear easy to use, you just need to break the outer level to mix and release the smoke inside. Smells foul, but won't actually hurt you. Chance, you'll want to keep it with you, we'll want to toss them between us and the wasps if they do start coming for us, to create a screen."

"Are those your holy water bombs you're hanging?" Dahnner asked him, indicating one of the small clay containers.

"They are, but I'd rather not trust anybody else to set them off without it blowing up in their hands," he explained. "The fireworks would be different, but I don't think we want to set those off unless it's a real emergency."

"How do you walk without constantly being afraid that you'll blow yourself apart?" Longclaw asked the alchemist seriously. "It looks like that satchel of yours could probably leave a crater behind."

"I built them, they like me," Jake shrugged, apparently perfectly serious about it.

"Right... all the same, I think I'll stand well away from you when the fight breaks out. Inquisitor, would you like to borrow one of my pistols? Between the two of us, we should be able to keep Chance safe, but if one of them comes after us I'd rather we each have a backup weapon."

"Thank you," she accepted the pistol and ticked it in easy reach. "How many rounds of the blessed ammo do you have on you?"

"All you've made for me. A dozen," he chuckled uneasily as they began the walk.

"Hopefully, we won't need nearly that much," she settled herself into the easy, pre-battle mindset that had served her so well for her decade in the field. It hadn't been an easy thing to learn, but it had been well worth it. She could sense more than see Dahnner do much the same, though Chance was definitely of a different school. His excitement was palpable, and Jake was just too inexperienced to not get keyed up. Cy'ril was much harder to read, but she though the unicorn was both nervous and confident of his abilities.

"Even regular ammo would do just fine against them," Jake piped up, eager to share his knowledge. "Insects are basically just blobs of liquid held together by a shell. Break the shell and they drop. Being undead, these shells will be even more fragile than most."

"They're still as big as I am," Felina pointed out, though she kept the description in mind. "Might take a while to bleed out."

"Nah," Jake shook his head. "Trust me, they'd basically explode if you hit the main body."

"I'll keep that in mind if I have to get up close with any of them," Chance piped up. "Not looking to have that happen, but if it does, I'll swing for the pointy end first."

They walked through the forest, Dahnner and Longclaw both clearly keenly aware of every noise, or lack thereof. The kantin's nose in particular was moving at a mile a minute, drinking in as much information as possible as they traveled.

"I'm surprised that the animals are still around here," he observed. "Usually they're the first to flee an outbreak like this."

"They're kept close by the pull of my realm," Cy'ril explained. "Our world is soothing for them, and it creates a false sense of safety."

"So the poison hasn't spread there?" Dahnner asked him.

"It dares not," Cy'ril agreed. "Even if we find a cure, Miri and the Heartwood may be similarly barred."

"That seems rather extreme," Jake glanced at the unicorn. "A cure means the condition and what caused it is gone for good. There's no reason to treat them any differently once cured. Unless the reason to keep them out is because they've gone insane or something the cure can't address."

The unicorn nickered softly, almost a chuckling sound.

"Why are the undead considered unnatural?" He asked them.

"Because they're animated by energies that are the opposite of life-energies," Jake said easily. "All life runs on the same energy that healing spells use; the undead are like trying to start a fire by pouring water on it."

"And yet, you were going to start my rider's ax on fire with water, were you not?" Cy'ril pointed out. Jake scowled, apparently as much at his mistake as at being called out on it.

"Technically, I was only going to heat it," he pointed out. "The heat might have caused the pitch to start on fire, but just pouring water on pitch wouldn't do anything. Undead bodies aren't prepared specially so that death energies can animate them, like the pitch would have been."

"As far as we know," Cy'ril granted. "But no, the use of these energies to animate them has little to do with why they are unnatural. Before ever a god set its covetous eyes upon this world, its moon, or its sun, my world existed. The Eldest are known as such for good cause, for they are the most ancient life that exists. All that is, has been, or will be, exists within the realm of the Fae in its purest form. Or at least it did, until the undead. They did not exist. Within my world, death is final. It does not come about through old age, no, but if you are killed... it is truly death. This is true even of the blackest of sinners, even of the Eldest, though their power is such that it has never been tested. The undead... they were the first truly novel thing your gods crafted here. And their taint will not be tolerated. I do not know if Miri and the Heartwood would truly be exiled," he pointed out. "I have not witnessed such a case, and surely an Eldest would be called upon to resolve it. But it is possible that the Eldest will not wish to take the chance. It is possible they will wish to destroy them," he admitted.

"Hardly seems fair," Chance scowled.

"And it is also possible that the Eldest in question will decide to keep them as honored guests, merely for the novelty of speaking with beings who have touched the one thing they have never themselves experienced," Cy'ril pointed out. "Fairness is a fluid concept, at best, with the Eldest."

"Sounds like a few of the gods we have running around too," Dahnner chuckled. "Just how stable are the rules in the fae realm?"

"Mmm... that depends on who you ask," Cy'ril explained as they walked along. "By mortal standards, I suppose you might say they're very stable, as a given rule can last for a thousand years without changing. By fae standards, that can be anywhere from forever and a day to the blink of an eye, depending on how bored they are during those thousand years. Except for one cardinal rule, the laws of the fae are so riddled with exceptions and loopholes that they're almost a joke. For example, nothing can be taken without proper repayment, and he who takes must accept the price given to him. Unless he takes on behalf of another who was given a different price. Unless he offered a different price and the offer was accepted first. Unless the Eldest decides that the price is ridiculous, though that's a dangerous one, because the Eldest gets to name a 'fair' price then, which could be even higher than the original. Unless what you've taken is green with purple polka-dots, because once upon a time that happened to be the favorite color combination of the Pumpkin King and so all such items are his by his own decree and cannot be taken unless you deny them to him. Unless, unless, unless."

"So what's the one rule that doesn't have all those things?" Dahnner pressed him.

"He or she who can call in the biggest favor from the most potent arbiter wins," Cy'ril told him. "You have the hear of a spriggan king? You've got power, especially among the spriggans. A redcap owes your enemy a lifedebt? Learn not to sleep, unless you've got somebody on your side the redcap fears more. The most dreaded words among the fae are probably 'don't worry about it, you just owe me one,' because you never know when that favor will come due. At the same time, that's as much a reason as fear that the fae are so eager to serve the Eldest as well. Being an Eldest's favorite is a very powerful position, and can make even a brownie king of the court."

"I think Kip described it as 'law by immortal, omnipotent beings who are very, very bored," Felina piped up.

"Very accurate," Cy'ril agreed. "It's part of why I remain in this world as much as I do, to be honest. While my realm is beautiful, and I protect it gladly, I feel this world is much more... predictable. It makes my duties much easier, when you don't have to worry about some angry Eldest coming by to demand favors be fulfilled before you help a soul move on."

"It's probably heresy to someone, but that sounds like what most intelligent undead are trying to turn this realm into," Jake mused.

"Oh, no, they're usually much more interested in either the 'charnel house' option, or the 'kneeling at my feet doing whatever I wish them to' option," Dahnner corrected Jake. "Undead dictatorships are very stable."

"True," Cy'ril agreed. "Unlike the Eldest, I have yet to meet a vampire or lich who would willingly order people not to pay attention to them, for example. Or who suddenly change their minds completely two or three centuries down the road, because they've grown tired of everybody painting purple polka dots on melons to try and curry favor. At least among the ambitious undead, boredom is only their chief motivator in the cases of the ones who were either already mad, or are about to leave this world willingly."

Jake gave a hum and nodded. "True enough, but what ambitious undead hasn't faced a challenge to their power in thousands of years? They're all still in the empire building, rather than empire maintaining stage of things. That said, the difference between insane and insanely bored can be a very thin one."

"Much as I'm not sure I agree with him, Jake does have a point on both counts," Felina said thoughtfully, even though she didn't really care one way or the other. Her job involved sending them on to their final rest no matter what the rhyme or reason of their methods.

"He does, though the rare demilich is about as close as we've come. Centuries, even aeons of plotting to overthrow the world... suddenly given up because they've realized that, in the big scheme of things, it doesn't really matter," Dahnner mused.

"And on doing so, they leave behind their phylactery and body to search for something that does," Cy'ril agreed. "We have legends of the last time one made that choice, but no psychopomp remembers the actual experience. While the stories mostly portray it as a moment of peace and serenity, I've always thought it would be more a moment of abject terror for whoever was approached by a spirit with enough power to make a bid against the Gods themselves for the right to determine their own path through Eternity. It's just as well you mortals are so skilled at ferreting out their trinkets and grinding them to dust."

"Survival is the mother of invention," Felina chuckled. "An old saying for us, but still very true. If we didn't remove them, we wouldn't exist any more."

"Which brings my thoughts back around to why you guys invented guns before we did," Chance chuckled low in his throat. "Of course, I imagine they're pretty useful against the undead too."

"Eidolos the Unrelenting," Jake nodded. "Warrior-mage who warped the rituals for lichdom and bound himself to a suit of armor forged by the greatest magesmiths of his era. Not much you could throw at him that would stop him, but Ellek the Thundermaker found something that would. Turned out that ten pounds of sharpened agracite shot propelled by an equal amount of gunpowder does a _really_ good job of shredding just about anything, including armor that can withstand the Grand Marshal's Cudgel. They smelted the remains down in a volcano, just to be sure."

"Another thing I like about mortals," Cy'ril nickered. "You have a great deal of respect for being thorough when you're doing a job."

"Paranoia, imagination and experience telling us that even our imaginations aren't good enough does that," Felina grinned at him. "It doesn't take many first-person accounts that make you go 'how did anything ever think of that' before you realize that no matter how bad a thing you can think up, someone's done worse before and you learn to be very, _very_ sure something won't move again before turning your back on it."

"Speaking of which, I think we're coming up on the scene," Chance warned them. Longclaw dropped down into the grass almost silently and crawled up the hill on his belly, musket ready to aim and fire as soon as possible. As he neared the top, he stopped in place. Reaching under himself, he removed his remaining pistols, and sat them down near the pouch of cartridges he'd prepared for the battle. Then he raised his hand and made a few gestures.

"Your sheriff has some surprises under his hat," Dahnner mused. "They're over the hill all right. He's in position, can just see where the treant is. We should prepare and move up, but keep our heads down so we don't attract attention until we're ready."

Felina cast resist fire on Cy'ril, then while Jake and Chance were preparing the tabby's armor and weapons to be lit up if needed, she cast the invisibility to undead on them both. "You're ready to go," she said before carefully crawling to join Longclaw and Dahnner on the ridge. Jake followed them up shortly, taking a moment to indicate where the smokesticks should be thrown for each of them to maximize their screen. He sat a pack of fireworks next to himself for later use, and passed one to each of the others.

"Last ditch defense. Brace the butt against the ground, and pull the cord," he explained in a harsh whisper, pantomiming the activity so they knew how to set them off. "Treat them like a disposable gun."

Once they were all in place, Longclaw held up a hand, watching the treant make its way around the pond again, keeping a close eye on the wasps as well. He kept his hand open until the treant was looking the other way... then, as it started away from them, closed it abruptly, bringing his hand down to help him aim.

Cy'ril took off over the hill as Chance lightly tapped the unicorn's sides with his heels, out of habit more than anything. Black horse and red-clad tabby rider began to descend into the small 'valley' where the treant almost seemed to have trapped itself for the last weeks, riding straight up to it.

Felina was struck by how surreal it was that the buzzing wasps didn't seem to even notice them. She'd done this before, but watching it from the outside seemed all the more unnatural. Unfortunately, they weren't merely trying to collect a body. They were heading for a living target, one that could hear and feel the approach of pounding hooves.

Slowly, ponderously, the living oak turned, almost seeming to be confused. Then Chance raised his ax in one hand, holding out the other to grab onto a limb, and the sight woke a dim memory of danger in the treant's addled mind.

The entire forest seemed to shake in outrage as it raised its 'arms,' and the wasps began to buzz about in a frenzy, swarming through the branches for a target they were being told existed, but that they themselves couldn't see.

Felina's finger tightened on the trigger as she prepared for the moment she knew was coming, knew _had_ to come. The moment when Chance actually attacked the controller of the wasps, and shattered the spell that had protected him so far.

The treant swung at the charging kat and unicorn. Chance swung his ax at the approaching branch, hoping to get lucky with his first hit.

Instead, the tabby went tumbling as the tree struck him with its formidable strength, and the wasps began to descend.

"Throw your sticks!" Jake ordered the group on the hill, cracking his own black smokestick and throwing it into place, sending up a thick black fog that billowed into the air with motes of silver seeming to dance through it. The others followed suit, putting their own meager defense into place before they opened fire.

The sheriff's gun was the first to speak, erupting with fire and ripping the backside off of the wasp nearest Chance. Its upper half remained flying, futilely battering the tabby but unable to do more than get in the way of its comrades, buying the group time to take their own shots.

Cy'ril, despite being riderless, whirled about to do what he could, impaling one of the bugs on his twisting, blade-like horn before the tree next to him, a normal one, uprooted itself and bludgeoned him with a powerful branch, sending the unicorn tumbling with a frantically buzzing payload attached to his forehead until the Sheriff's first remaining pistol completely shattered it, drenching silver mane in black and green remnants of the insect.

Chance had broken his own smokestick by now, forcing the wasps back enough to let Dahnner and Felina each rip a paper cartridge open and stuff the pre-made payload into the still-hot barrels of their pistols, preparing to fire again quickly.

Felina felt Shelar's calm settle over her, helping her breathe and continue to focus on the rhythm of the fight. Rip the cartridge open, pray the barrel was cool enough it wouldn't set off the powder, ram powder, wadding, and bullet all home at once, aim at another of the incessantly buzzing menaces that were completely focused on the tabby, fire, watch her target explode into gore, repeat.

A few of the wasps broke off, coming towards the shooters, but when they hit the smoke they turned back to go after Chance again. Undead or not, they were still insects, with insect minds. Defend home, defend the leader, defend themselves last and least, and the shooters weren't enough of a threat to the first two to be worth flying through the burning, stinking fog between them.

Chance and Cy'ril, on the other hand, were. Another tree uprooted itself, two animated willows trailing dripping black lashes of leaf and branch as they converged on Cy'ril, who had barely righted himself before being forced to defend himself against the forest he had protected for so long. Meanwhile, Chance was howling with bloodlust, smashing the stingerless wasp that was harassing him with his ax, then cutting the next in two neatly at what passed for its waist. He grabbed its twitching, spear-like stinger and picked up the entire rear half of the bug, hurling it into one of its undead kin before he turned his attentions back on the treant, seemingly just as maddened in midst of battle.

Suddenly, a small brown globe sailed into the midst of the swarming wasps. A deafening noise erupted as Jake's special brand of magic did its work, hurling holy water and shards of clay etched with holy scriptures through the swarm. Three of the wasps fell, shattered wings twitching and burning from the holy water as their useless insides poured out through gaping holes the clay shrapnel had ripped through them. Jake gave a whooping cheer as he saw his handiwork, and prepared to launch his next attack.

For Felina, they were all details that she'd recall later, in the calm of the night as she sorted the memories into place and learned from them. In the moment she was blind to so much in her perfect focus on what was needed to survive the battle. She registered targets, tactics, what worked, what didn't and what needed to be done. More shots, another explosion, dead wasp-parts flying everywhere.

Cy'ril made a charge at the treant, desperate to break a branch off so he could run with it. He could accept his own death. He wouldn't accept failing the mission. They needed that limb.

The treant twisted out of his way, a group of the wasps breaking off to intervene. Cy'ril's horn gleamed in the dim light as he fought them back, just before he saw a flash of brilliant orange from Chance's direction.

The tabby had broken open Jake's vial of fire with his ax, the now-flaming weapon coated in the thick substance. Its edge glowed more yellow than orange, the heat channeled to the very cutting surface. A wasp that tried to block Chance was cut in two, its insides hissing as the glowing blade cooked them. Chance grabbed a flask from his hip, took a long swig from it, and then leaped at the Heartwood.

Cy'ril had seen spriggans make more powerful leaps, of course, their grasshopper-like legs better suited to the task. He'd seen winged fae fly with more grace. But he had never seen the sort of raw martial power that Chance seemed to coil into his movement. As the kat flew into the air, his blazing weapon began to spin, both hands on the haft, putting the full weight of the tabby's muscle and battle-madness behind it as he unleashed a roar that would have made a lion proud. The treant shrunk back from the flames instinctively, but Chance had accounted for that. As a mighty wooden arm swung up to prevent a direct attack on the living tree's trunk, Chance landed his blow, cleaving a portion of the treant's 'hand' free, black ichor oozing from the faintly smoking branch.

"Run with it!" Chance roared at Cy'ril as he landed, taking another swig from the flask he'd somehow kept at his side through the entire leap.

The unicorn didn't bother to hesitate; he summoned the power he had been blessed with, and his obsidian horn flashed with silver light. The wasps flew back from him instinctively, as though a shield were surrounding him.

"On my back!" He whinnied to Chance, reaching down to grab the branch, horn still gleaming. Chance leaped astride him, tangling his free hand in the unicorn's mane and laughing madly as they took off up the hill at a full gallop as the wasps swung around to guard their master, a few of the survivors chasing after the threat to make sure it fled.

Jake grabbed the fireworks, yanking the cord inside that would break free the tiny glass vial of metal inside. The phosphorous he'd released blazed brightly within the tube, igniting the powder and sending the charge soaring through the wasps, the sparks leaving them singed from heat and sacred energy, buying all four of them on the hill time to get to their feet to make their escape.

Cy'ril and Chance broke through the smokescreen on the ground and crested the hill, galloping past them with branch in tow.

"That's our cue!" Dahnner shouted, turning to flee as well. Longclaw grabbed his guns up from the ground, raising the one still loaded and firing into the approaching insects. One of them erupted into goo, but the other two turned towards the kat, homing in on him.

Felina had been in the middle of reloading when the time came to retreat, and her own pistol wasn't ready to fire. She grabbed for the one she'd borrowed from Longclaw and fired, killing one of the two wasps. The third finally found its target, plunging its stinger at the Sheriff's chest. He snarled as it struck him, though it seemed to stop just beneath the surface of his armor. The sheriff spun his spent pistol around, bringing it down with skull-shattering force on the bloated, fragile thorax of the wasp. It broke apart gorily, but Felina knew that the rigid angle the stinger remained embedded at couldn't be a good sign.

"Get him out of here!" Jake shouted, dumping his fireworks and yanking a bomb from his bandolier. "I'll be right behind you!"

Felina was already moving. "Protect the stinger," she ordered as she grabbed the whipcord thin tom and heaved him over a shoulder, all without breaking stride. She was even with Dahnner in three paces and passing him by five. Despite leaving the other behind, she glanced at him as she passed, and was waved forward by the elder Inquisitor.

What really surprised her was that Jake was already running towards them all, and past even her almost by the time she could turn back around.

"Get low!" He shouted to Dahnner as he passed the kantin. The middle-aged Inquisitor didn't ask questions, throwing himself to the ground just before the reason why became clear.

Behind them, from the top of the hill, Jake's bomb went off, exploding a matter of feet from the fireworks he'd scattered. While the launch tubes were ruined by the blast, the charges were all set off as the white-hot metal stored with them was exposed to air, gunpowder blazing along with them. A moment of blinding light rose from the hill before, one after another, each of the fireworks detonated loudly, sending a shockwave through the forest along with a roar of noise, chemical power and holy power erupting between them and the wasps, annihilating the unlucky few close enough to it to be caught in the blast.

Cy'ril and Chance rounded once the noise had stopped, coming back to find the others. Chance was panting hard, but grinning, at least until he saw Longclaw's condition.

"It's not as bad as it looks," the older kat said, speaking loudly for everybody's benefit for once. "Inquisitor, can you hold the end?" He asked her, indicating the dangling poison sacs. "Have to get it out before they're all in me. Arm's already going numb."

She nodded and grabbed hold even as Jake rushed forward to help -- and to acquire the poison sacs for his testing. It was the work of a moment to get the stinger out and then Felina was applying pressure to keep the wound from bleeding out too much.

"Do you have a delay poison, or something better?" she glanced at Dahnner.

"Delay, yes, cure, no," Dahnner nodded, reaching into his own pack and pulling out a wand. "Best if you use it, sometimes they don't get along with me."

"Wearing mail under the tunic," Longclaw warned him. "Slipped through the links."

"The wand doesn't need direct contact," Dahnner reassured him, switching places with Felina, taking the wound to keep it from bleeding too badly and letting her handle the magic.

"Command word's on the side, but I can handle closing the wound." He explained, speaking the words to a basic healing spell as Felina quickly read and repeated the wand's command. Silver light glowed around the tip of the wand, and Dahnner's hand, flowing into the sheriff as the healing magic did its work.

"Here, drink these," Jake added, pulling a vial of antitoxin and a flask of holy water out of his pack. "They'll taste horrible, but if they don't stop it from taking hold they'll at least slow it down until I can get a proper cure.

"He going to be okay?" Chance asked with sincere concern, the branch slung over his shoulder now.

"Hopefully," Jake nodded. "Our best bet, at any rate. We'll have to wait and see, but I'd recommend he ride back with us... all the way," he added, glancing at Cy'ril uncertainly. "We can have a horse brought from the town?"

The unicorn regarded the group, then nodded with a low whinny. "I will carry him into town. He helped save my life."

"Thank you," Longclaw said gratefully. "I don't want to hold everybody else up."

"If you fall off, I'll stay behind with you to get a travoy rigged and get you home," Chance promised. "I'm not the one they'll need to get working on a cure." He helped the wounded sheriff up onto Cy'ril's back, then passed him a different flask than the one he'd been using during the fight. "If you start feeling tired, drink that, fast and as close to one swig as you can, so you don't have to taste it. It'll keep you awake until we can get you home, as long as you can choke it down."

"What is it?" Longclaw asked him dubiously.

"My own version of war mead," Chance explained. "Had to tweak a few things from my hometown's version for the local mushrooms, but it tastes as foul and works as well as ever. Usually save it in case something comes after me after a long day, but it'll work for this too."

"Thank you," the sheriff said and tucked the flask into his belt.

"Or I can ride behind you to keep you upright," Jake offered with a question to Cy'ril if that was okay.

Cy'ril nodded, though a little more warily.

"I'm not a pack horse, but if you'll jump off if it's too much weight, all right," he agreed.

"Probably weighs less than I do," Longclaw chuckled faintly. "This will help, though," he added, wincing as he started to strip off his outer layer of leather armor. Chance held out his hands to catch it, grunting a bit as he did. Without the outer armor in the way, it was easier to see the wound through the Sheriff's tunic, where blood stained the cloth that was above faintly glimmering, silvery links of metal.

Jake handed off his pack to Dahnner and whistled lowly as he climbed up behind him. "Didn't know being a sheriff paid that well," he murmured.

"Jake, don't bother the Sheriff," Dahnner told him, the slight "Commander's edge" to his tone getting the fascinated alchemist's attention in a flash. "Just help him on the ride, once he's feeling better you can ask him any questions you have."

"Yes sir," he promised. "Not too heavy?" He asked Cy'ril.

"No, but let's not pick up any more passengers," he chuckled, starting back towards the edge of the forest, one last glance behind them proving that the wasps were, indeed, thoroughly deterred from following them by Jake's final display.

The trip back to town was a somber one, subdued by the focus on wanting to get Longclaw back and under appropriate care as quickly as possibly. He didn't complain during the trip, but Jake could feel the tension in the lithe kat's frame each time the cramps hit him, and knew by the way he was cradling his arm that it was probably completely numb by now.

"When we do get back to town, where are we going?" Cy'ril asked them.

"My place," Longclaw replied through clenched teeth, taking a sharp breath and forcing his face into a grim smile. "Near the jail, the guards can show the way."

"Any family we should warn before we get there?" Dahnner asked him.

"No," came the clipped answer.

Jake rummaged through his satchel with his free hand, pulling out a few different vials before settling on one filled with a bright pink fluid.

"Drink this, it'll help with the cramping," he explained, popping the cork out and helping the Sheriff to take the remedy.

"I'll go ahead and make sure the Guard and Whiteeye know we're coming," Chance volunteered, shifting the weight of their sample from the treant on his back and taking off at a steady run that rapidly saw him disappearing into the wood.

"You prefer Whiteeye to care for you?" Felina asked, curious at the elder's status over the local Drawnbringer.

"Most in the town do," the Sheriff admitted. "The Dawnbringer means well," he said, ignoring a faint huff from Dahnner, "but he's not as good a healer as she is."

"More expensive too, I wager," Dahnner observed.

"Whiteeye doesn't work for free either," Longclaw pointed out. "And neither do your healers, most of the time. Though she's more flexible with her terms," he admitted.

"Sounds about right," Dahnner nodded. "You can't support such a widespread network without plenty of gold. We get ours stripping the tombs of liches and vampires, they get theirs peddling their goddess' gifts. Mother Whiteeye just has to make her own ends meet, and I imagine most of the town loves her family enough for what she does that it's not too hard."

"Especially not with the kits she brings up," Longclaw agreed. "Besides, I'd rather not bring a priest out from the capitol with you three in town."

"That is appreciated," Dahnner nodded, his eyes sharp on how well the sheriff was keeping his balance. They were walking fast, but it was still a walk, and Cy'ril was doing an admirable job of keeping his back level and not jostling the pair. By the time they reached the edge of the woods, it was clear that the sheriff needed Jake's support to stay on board, and that his breathing was more difficult.

It was also clear that something was going on in the town besides the surprise brought on by Chance's sudden return and the revelation of a unicorn. Outside the open gates, a throng of some twenty robed figures was gathered and singing a low, wordless, haunting melody.

"You're not coming into our town without a better reason than that!" The guard at the gate shouted at the apparent leader, a massive xanith tom whose simple black robe was embellished with red accents. The tom's hand was all that could be seen outside his robes, dark-furred and large enough he could probably pick up the smaller guard by the head if he'd wanted to, with orange stripes along the back.

"We follow the song," the xanith said simply. "If you will not welcome us, then we will remain outside until it moves along."

"You do that," the guard muttered. As Felina, Cy'ril, and the rest of the group left the forest, both turned to see who was coming. The guard's jaw dropped as he saw Cy'ril, but to his credit, he recovered quickly. The xanith, for his part, slowly dropped down to one knee, bowing his head respectfully, the rest of his choir doing the same once they had turned to see what he was responding to. Their singing became louder, and words became audible from the singers, words in a blend of languages that seemed to twist together into a single entreaty to the guides to the afterlife.

"Make room for the Sheriff!" The guard shouted into the town. "He's coming in on horseback!"

"Sort of," he added, a bit more hesitantly as he went back to a slightly less gawking expression of awe as they approached, Cy'ril speeding up to a careful trot now that they had an open path into the town, and somebody saying to make way rather than calling for reinforcements.

Longclaw did his best not to look as sick as he was, to play it off as a normal physical injury only. Things happened. People got hurt. That wouldn't panic anyone. Knowing he was full of undead-making poison definitely would.

Cy'ril took Jake's verbal guidance to the jail, and then Longclaw's to the home next to it, trying to ignore the stares.

By the time they reached the house, Longclaw was glad that he'd taken off his outer armor, just for the fact it made the blood more noticeable. Between that and his distinctly unusual ride, they weren't as likely to notice, or question, the signs that it was more than just getting struck.

"Sheriff, what happened?" One of the guards asked as he helped Longclaw down. To his credit, the kat stayed on his feet under his own power while he stayed still, betraying as little of the nature of his injury as he could.

"Giant wasps don't like guns going off any more than you lot do," he tried to joke. "And they're a lot nastier when they complain. Chance went for Whiteeye?"

"I think so," the guard nodded.

"Good. She'll have me back up soon enough. Lonegan's in charge until then, and keep those damned living banshees outside."

"Yes, sir. Ah... sir?" He nodded faintly towards Cy'ril.

"Cy'ril, from the Faewood. Offered to make sure I didn't open up the wound on the way back. And thank you for it," Longclaw added with a formal salute as Jake jumped down to help him inside. "Now, let Lonegan know he's in charge and make sure folks stay calm. The mission was a success, and the Inquisitors will have everything under control soon."

"Yes sir," the guard saluted him back before taking off to carry out his orders, letting Longclaw walk stiffly in through the front door of his small home before clutching the door with his good arm for support.

"Cot and kit in the privy," he rasped to Jake, sending the cinnamon-furred tom into the only other room in the place with a door on it, a small attachment between the main room and the kitchen.

"I should get back to the woods," Cy'ril told Felina and Dahnner as they caught up. "I'll see you both tomorrow, at the usual place?"

"We will be there," Felina nodded. "Safe journey, Cy'ril."

* * *

The next days saw Jake working at a feverish pace in his makeshift laboratory. Felina's own experience with alchemy was limited; she barely knew the names of half the equipment Jake had scattered around his room, Dahnner's, and hers as his project slowly encroached on more territory than one room at the inn could handle. Every few hours, there was a new call for some reagent or piece of equipment that one of the two Inquisitors would have to fetch or improvise, a task that had been made much easier by Chance and Madge's intimate knowledge of the village's brewery, and friendship with the kats who owned it.

Sometimes the list would sound like it needed to go to a grocer's; nutmeg, various vegetables or meats, the freshest grain they could acquire. Other times, it necessitated a trip to the village blacksmith to try and explain that, yes, they knew proper steel was stronger, but they were under very strict orders that they needed pure iron instead. Perhaps the most bizarre part of the day had been when they were asked to go get as much sawdust from the mill as they could drag back to the brewery.

Particularly when Jake started shoveling the sawdust into the still they'd rented while the middle-aged owner was busy laying a rope line around the still to guarantee nobody else would use it or touch its product.

"Something expensive," was all Jake would say when Dahnner had asked what was going on, leading to a series of muttered curses from the kantin as he returned to his room, now partially dominated by a complicated rig of tools Jake was using to analyze the results of whatever process was going on in Felina's room, which tended to produce a multitude of vials of different colored fluids. In particular, Jake was interested in the thick brown syrup that was left in the bottom of his alembic after a period being heated over a small fire.

"Do you have any better idea what he's doing than I do?" Dahnner asked Felina grumpily one morning, after they'd returned from the forest and been allowed through the line of the choir that was still camping outside the village. "All I can tell is that he keeps mixing things together and muttering to himself about needing something stronger."

"I doubt it," she grumbled back, grateful for the warmed spiced weak ale she drank more of than she really should. "Pretty sure he's trying to dissolve the sap. I'm very sure the Order's going to be replacing that still before we leave. That's about it. Can't make heads or tails of whether he thinks he's making progress though."

"You're probably right about the still," Dahnner agreed. "I overheard the brewer threatening to make one of his assistants drink it himself if he caught him going near it again, so it must be something pretty foul, whatever it is he's doing with it." He took a drink of his own, taking off his lute to tune it idly. "We should try and pin him down on what's going on when he remembers he needs to eat again. Gods help us if he ever finds out there's magic that would stop that pesky little problem."

Felina didn't hide her laugh. "We'd never find any researchers again. I'm sure meals are the only way half of them are kept track of to start with."

"Meals and the privy," Dahnner chuckled. "We just need to keep him from setting up shop here. Could you imagine what he'd do with steady access to the fey?" He shook his head. "Besides, I'd say this town's attracted enough unusual inhabitants as it is. Any plans for after we've licked this one?"

"As regrettable as leaving such a good cook and brewery is, I'm planning to circle back home via the southern kingdoms," Felina smiled before taking another swig of the warming, tasty brew. "I haven't seen any of my close kin in almost four years. It'll be five or six by the time I get there. Might stay a year, give a kit to the Order if there's a tom worth the trouble."

"Not a bad idea," Dahnner agreed. "I'm sure your family'd be glad to see you with an heir, and early in your career's a better bet unless you get through it damned lucky. Some days I think I'm lucky I've got so few options for breeding most places; wouldn't want any pup to have to deal with whatever I might pass on to them."

"I know," she nodded thoughtfully. "My uncle says much the same, though last I heard his youngest is doing well enough. I'm not sure if it's getting drained or just bad luck, but the slow kits do seem to come from parents who took a few too many hits when they were young. At the same time, many seem to do just fine. My sire wasn't exactly young when I was born, but the one he sired before me never did have all his links in a row." She paused for a long drink and sighed at the warmth in her belly. "Have you sired any pups?"

"For all I know, I might have a whole clan out there," he laughed. "Mostly from when I was younger, before I was an Inquisitor. Spent a lot of nights on one end or the other of a trick, trying to get information or just a warm bed. It was the easiest way to earn a little coin without setting down roots." He strummed his lute, starting to play lightly to test its tuning.

Felina nodded, honestly not that surprised as she finished her drink. "Care to come with to check on Jake, or stay and entertain?"

"I'll stay down here," he told her. "Folks have been getting edgy, it'll do them some good to have a chance to wind down a bit when they come through."

She nodded and stood to walk smoothly upstairs, her body telling her how much it appreciated the regular full nights of rest, good food and drink and especially the hot daily baths. Finding Jake was easy, since she knew he was still upstairs somewhere. She just followed the indistinct growling in half a dozen arcane languages.

When the growling turned into a spate of polyglot cursing that would have made a sailor's ears turn red if he'd understood even half as much as Felina did, she knew she was at the right room.

Inside, Jake was glaring at an alembic filled with a thin blue-black fluid at the bottom, and clear, rapidly bubbling fluid on top, the room filled with the smell of alcohol.

"All I am asking is that you _blend!_ " He snarled at the flask of bubbling liquid. "Is that _really_ too much to ask for?" He grabbed Narin's notebook and threw it across the room, presumably because it was the piece of the equipment least likely to explode when he did so.

"So, not going well," Felina 'guessed.'

"Actually, it's going great, if I can figure out some way to mix this crap so I can actually test it on the venom proper," he growled, his tail flicking back and forth. "Instead it keeps separating every damned time I mix the cure with the alcohol."

She gave a half understanding hum and nodded. "Does it have to be alcohol?"

"It's the best thing I've found that weakens the sap," he explained. "Oils just soften it, and won't mix with the holy water, and I wouldn't want to use any stronger reagents on something that's going to have to go into a person. Ugh! This is so much harder when the victim has to be alive when I'm done," he grumbled. "We're just lucky that two of our patients are trees, on that front, or this would be a lot more difficult to manufacture on a larger scale. I wonder if... Felina, can you bless alcohol to get the same effect? If I can do that I wouldn't have to worry about getting the holy water to stay blended, and I could let the antitoxin distill along with the alcohol, that just might work!"

"Yes, I do so often enough. It's not always easy to acquire purified water, but alcohol does a great job of keeping impurities out. Any liquid can usually be blessed, so long as it's pure enough to take the blessing," she said easily. "Though I'm not completely positive, it could probably be distilled further without losing the blessing."

"I would think so, since otherwise most of my potions wouldn't survive the process," Jake grinned, his tail twitching more agitatedly, like a kit poised to pounce on a mouse. "Will you be able to try something today, or should we wait for tomorrow?" He asked her. "I'd like to try running some tests as soon as I can, get to work on the full-scale production if it works."

She shook her head. "I'm spent for the day, but I can after I've rested, first thing in the morning."

"I'll start the other parts of the preparations then," he agreed. "How are our patients holding up?"

"Better than expected, honestly," she said with a sigh and a slight smile. "No surprise, the sheriff's doing the best. He's getting chills, but so long as he rests rather than moves, he seems reasonably stable. Miri's much more lucid, and strong enough to moderate the effects on her grove and the animals there. She's being strong for now, but she's right on the edge where fear could send her into a downward spiral again. Cy'ril says the disease is still spreading at a similar rate. I wish that treant would hold still," she huffed. "Then we could treat it like we do Miri. It's hard to get it to drink the holy water when it won't take from the same spot twice."

"It's trying to find a cure of its own," Jake pointed out. "That's my guess, at least. It's lucid enough to know Narin did something to it. Enough to know that whatever it was, there should be a cure. But not enough to actually focus and find that cure, unfortunately. If it were, it might be able to find one on its own, with the unicorns to help. That's... well, that's my 'if all else fails, before we burn it we try this' option," he admitted. "But don't let Cy'ril know that I think it's even possible things could get that far. I don't... mostly. But trying to cure a poison, it's awfully hard to be working and _knowing_ that there are unicorns, _plural_ unicorns, nearby."

"Wh ... the horn," she cut herself off, then frowned. "You do remember that they, in plural, can't cure this, right? They can't even _slow_ it."

"I know, but that's while they're still alive," he explained, finishing up whatever he was tinkering with and turning around to face her. "A unicorn's horn, according to previous experiments, contains an incredible amount of healing magic, enough that if you expend it all at once, you can put most high priests to shame. The problem is ... to do that, you have to kill the unicorn it's attached to, grind the horn to powder, and then perform some further refinements on it. Those previous experiments were all conducted by alchemists who were desperate, cruel, or both, and even a hint that I'm thinking of reproducing them would justifiably scare off our best allies in this. Especially since, as you pointed out, I _don't_ know if it would work or not. For all I know, it could only suffice for a single component of the poison, or not even that. I'm not going to _seriously_ consider taking a life for a cure I don't know is going to work. It's my last resort."

"There was one that was killed when they first attempted to approach the treant," she suggested cautiously. "Though I'd hesitate to ask for it unless you are at a complete dead end."

"It... _might_ be," he admitted. "It would be worth a shot, but I wouldn't expect it to help, if he was killed by the poison. Especially not if he came back afterwards, that's almost a guarantee. Too much negative energy taint. Though..." His eyes widened as he thought, rushing across the room to the notebook, paging through it.

"Technically, his unit put him down, but they had to do it twice, so no and yes," Felina explained briefly.

"Then it won't be any help to me, but I think we might want to make sure that horn's _really_ well secured," he warned her. "By _somebody_ , before some other would-be Narin finds out it exists."

"I'll bring it up to Cy'ril when I see him tomorrow," Felina nodded. "What would it be used for, in case he asks, since I'm sure he will."

"I have honestly got no idea what the limits would be," Jake admitted. "If nothing else, potent potion reagent, like mummy dust or a vampire's fang. But I could see it being used on a weapon easily, a spear or polearm of some sort... even as the focal 'stone' of a _staff of the magi_ for necromancers. No clue what something like that would be capable of, I think they'd have kittens down at the archives if I asked to try and figure it out. And all the attendants down there are toms now, in case you haven't been around since Bertha retired."

Felina snickered, then sobered. "I get it. Potential minor artifact, or potent enchanted item component. Since all I'm trying to do is convince him that it needs to be well guarded from the undead and their kin, that should be good enough. Now, if you're at a point where walking away won't blow up, come down for dinner."

"I'll be down after I set things up to cook while I'm gone," he offered. "I can't complete the process, but I can get it started enough that we'll know if the new ingredients spoil the blessing tomorrow."

She nodded and turned to leave. "If you aren't down in half an hour, I'm coming up to drag you down by the tail."

"At long as you're willing to let me put the burners down first," he joked as she walked out of the room, taking a deep breath of fresh air. She was going to smell like a lush when she got downstairs, and a hard core one at that. Still, it was a better smell than she often had when she came into a town. She'd live, and so would her reputation.

As she rounded the stairs, she realized that something sounded wrong. Dahnner wasn't playing, and the lower floor of the pub sounded altogether too quiet for her tastes. Reaching the bottom, she realized that almost everybody had left, for some reason. With one hand on her mace and cursing that she'd already blessed as must water as she could and didn't have any energy left for spells, she strode to the door and looked out, her ears twitching as she sought the sound of a crowd. One more deep breath of clear air and she strode rapidly towards the commotion she could hear in the direction of the jail.

Fortunately, it wasn't a mob she found there.

Not yet. Every Inquisitor learned to see the signs, was taught how easily concern could turn to fear and violence. The rumbling outside the Sheriff's house was easy to follow, despite the blasted choir outside the town still singing loudly enough to be heard over the palisade wall. It was almost like a sort of gentle torture, hearing it all the time, and she was sure that it wasn't helping the situation inside the walls at all.

More immediate, however, was the crowd. Most of them were just onlookers, she was sure, but she also saw a lot of Elaran skullcaps. Most of them were members of the church who had come with the Father, but there were two or three low ranking priests, probably with some magic, and the Father himself. As she drew closer, she picked up the sound of Dahnner's playing as well. How much of it was to try and keep the crowd calm, and how much was to try and feign calm himself, she couldn't tell from here.

"...Mother Whiteeye is taking care of him," Dahnner said as she got close enough to hear him. "He's in perfectly good hands, and he's going to be fine. I'll be happy to tell him you came by and were concerned, but he doesn't want visitors right now."

"Whiteeye is a fine woman with some skills, but this is a matter of magic, not lay witchcraft," the Father said sternly. "I am here to heal him."

"Sheriff asked for her, not you, Father," Dahnner countered. "Very specifically. Besides, you know what we're dealing with. I'm doing you a favor, Father."

"I'll be the judge of that, whore-priest," the ornately dressed kat sneered at him. "Get out of my way. If the Sheriff doesn't wish the Sun's healing, then he can tell me that himself."

"And be ignored, of course, assuming your spell worked. Though if it didn't, I'm sure you'd happily say that you'd respected his wishes," Dahnner observed, taking no visible offense at the slur. "After all, Elar always knows best, doesn't she? If you want to help, then you can take your kits and go pray." He jerked his head back in the direction of the temple, pausing his song to adjust his tuning slightly, feigning calm as well as he could. Felina could tell, however, that he was ready for things to turn bad. He wasn't sure if it would be the priest or the crowd, but he expected it at this point.

"Get off your tail and get out of my way, dog," the Father growled lowly. "If Whiteeye were able to handle this, the Sheriff would be out already. The people are worrying, and I am going to allay their fears. _And_ help the man you failed to protect."

Dahnner stood up, looking the Father in the eye and leaning in very close to say something so it couldn't be overheard. The kat sneered at whatever it was, brushing off the concern.

"I will care for Elar's children, as is my duty. Once you decide to stop raising your tail for anyone who'll toss you a bone, go back out in the woods and deal with Shelar's, as is yours." He reached up to push Dahnner out of the way, not noticing the snarl curling the edge of Dahnner's muzzle until he turned his head and spat on the Father's scarf, right on the emblem of Elar embroidered into the end of it.

Snarls erupted through the front of the crowd where they could see what had happened, confusion through the rest of it. Felina made her way through the crowd just in time to see the Father's muzzle curled back in a snarl of his own as he raised his hand, claws out, only to stop before he actually made the blow.

"You brush one whisker," Dahnner muttered under his breath, "and I'll have you open before the rest of your sheep can pop claws, Glorythief." One of the Kantin's hands was obscured by the priest's robes, and Felina could only assume there was a dagger in it.

"If the Sheriff dies, I will bless your body while your legs are still twitching from the gallows," the Kat promised.

"It's a good thing that he'll be recovering then, isn't it?"

"A messenger will be on his way to the high temple in the Capitol with a formal complaint within the hour." The Father stepped back, Dahnner lowering his hand so smoothly that even Felina had a hard time noticing the glint of steel concealed under the sleeve of his tunic. "Let us return to the Temple, and pray for these misguided souls," he announced to the gathered congregation, wiping his scarf clean.

The crowd's mood was much darker as they walked away, particularly those wearing the caps of Elar's children.

"Please tell me that Jake told you he'll be done soon," Dahnner asked Felina as he stepped back to lean against the door, the tension still not leaving his body.

"He's making progress," Felina said with a hint of apology. "Down to a single problem that we may have the fix for when I've recovered enough for it. He can break the poison. He's still working on breaking the bond to the sap without ruining the rest of the mix."

"That's good, because I don't think our welcome here is going to last much longer after that. _Stupid!_ " He snarled at himself, punching the wall of the Sheriff's house.

"If you're done starting a riot, I could use some quiet in here!" Whiteeye shouted from the other side of the door.

"Apologies, Mother Whiteeye," he replied loudly, sighing. "Come on, let's go get some food, while we're still welcome at the Nest."

"Agreed, and I promised to drag Jake down by the tail if he didn't eat soon," she tried to lighten their mood, though it didn't work well. She dropped her voice. "What was the stupid move?"

"Letting him bait me into responding the way I did," Dahnner muttered. "Let it be a lesson; it's better to punch somebody for being an ass than to stoop to their level, especially when you're dealing with Elarans. If I'd decked him, they'd have probably agreed I was justified. But insulting _their_ goddess? _They_ didn't do anything to me," he said bitterly. "Pompous asses."

Felina nodded with a huffed sigh. "I hate politics."


	5. The Cure

"You have made progress?" Whiteeye greeted the Inquisitors as they entered the sheriff's home with a very excited Jake not far behind.

"Yes, it works in the lab, and the worst that can happen is nothing and it goes down rough," Jake eagerly explained as he bypassed Felina and Dahnner to get to the sheriff's side. "It's base is alcohol and it'll be harsh, but that's as bad as it gets. I took a sip myself to be sure."

"How long will it take to know if it's working?" The Sheriff asked him.

"Unless you're feeling like taking a _big_ chance, it'll take us ten, maybe fifteen minutes before we start to see results," the cinnamon tom explained. "I could put it into the wound directly, but usually doing that with alcohol bases is chancy at best. For some reason the alcohol hits a lot harder, and the line between 'gets miserably drunk and hung over' and 'falls asleep and doesn't wake up' is a lot thinner."

"I'll drink it then," Longclaw told him quickly. Jake showed him a bottle filled with an almost indigo fluid that seemed to sparkle with silvery motes in the firelight of the room.

"You're probably going to have to drink the whole thing," he admitted, popping out the cork. "The faster the better, you won't have to taste it as much."

"Just a moment!" Whiteeye exclaimed, opening up her kit and pulling out a small jar. "One of you, put some of this on his nose first, it will help with the taste." Longclaw reached over and took the jar, spreading the thick, vanilla-scented paste inside over his nose.

"I see what you mean," he muttered, wrinkling his nose as his sense of smell was completely blocked. "All right, down the hatch," he sighed, taking the bottle and upending it. His eyes widened as he felt the burn, but he soldered on, just pausing once to breathe. His eyes were watering once he'd finished it, and he practically threw the bottle away when he had.

"What... is _in_... that?" He panted.

"You... probably don't want to know," Jake admitted. "But the short version is whiskey that's been boiled down until it's over 190 proof, kobold stone, colloidal silver, lapis stone and... other stuff you don't want to know about. To be honest, I'm thinking it'll do better as an antiseptic for the Order, unless we're dealing with a poison like this. Since it's in something that flies, we'll _have_ to spread the recipe, just in case one of the wasps took off with it inside them."

"Given I don't even know what anything you said after 'proof' meant, I'll take your word for it," Longclaw shuddered. "Phew... definitely fights the chills though."

"That would be the alcohol. Whiteeye? Do you have some good stout straps in that kit of yours?" Jake asked her.

"Usually for childbirth," she snorted. "Unless he'll be passing the poison, I don't think we'll need them."

"You haven't seen how Miri responded to the blend that _didn't_ work," Jake pointed out. "Sheriff, if you don't mind, I'd rather you didn't hurt yourself once it hits your blood."

"Go ahead," Longclaw tried to settle himself to be strapped down easily. "It's not like you won't take'm off."

She nodded and dug around her kit for the straps, which Felina and Dahnner used with practiced efficiency.

"It's rather nice not to have to improvise these," the kantin hummed.

"Exorcisms?" Longclaw guessed.

"Among other things," Dahnner chuckled knowingly. "Have you had any trouble from the Father since that little argument outside?"

"No, no trouble," Whiteeye laughed. "Though I wager my little scamps have something to do with that. If they had a mind to, I don't doubt they'd bring this village to its knees, between the troublemakers and the adorable ones."

"There's a difference?" Longclaw joked. "Though what did happen out there?"

"A difference of opinion on theology," Dahnner summed it up. "I don't take kindly to my goddess being slandered, especially not with what I know his has done. Turns out he doesn't take kindly to getting his pretty clothes all mussed up."

Longclaw nodded, only to wince, then groan as the potion began to take effect. "Think I'm drunk already. Going to hurt in the morning."

"Once you can drink again, I'll see to that," Whiteeye promised. "There are ways to ease Elar's revenge when you begin this early."

"And probably less miserable than the cures Jake has for it," Dahnner chuckled. "I never thought I'd see somebody use gunpowder for something like that."

"Hey, it works," Jake shrugged. "Besides, that's not my recipe, that one's from an old manual. I just mixed some up the day we headed out in case it turned out that tabby wasn't up for a fight."

"Turns out he has his own cures, and a higher drink tolerance that should exist in a living kat," Felina chuckled, though her humor died when the sheriff spasmed and screamed in pain.

"And _that_ would be the holy water interacting with the necromantic energies in his blood," Jake sighed. "I have got to find some way to work on that."

"Try brewing it with white willow bark, some poppy oil if you can find it," Whiteeye suggested. "Just go easy on the poppy oil, you don't want to make a fiend out of him."

"Why would poppy oil have anything to do with demonic ascension, even if somebody _wanted_ to use it that way?" Jake asked her, cocking his head.

"It's a figure of speech, lad!" The old crone tried to keep the disbelief and shock out of her voice, but with only minimal success, staring in his direction with sightless eyes.

"Oh." Jake's ears folded back sheepishly as he turned back towards the Sheriff as he twisted against the restrains.

"To be fair, in our line of business, it might not be," Dahnner offered. "Necromancers and demon worshipers have a lot in common."

"None of it good," Felina muttered as they all watched the sheriff's pain. Banging came from the front door, the voice of the Father shouting to be allowed in. "I'll talk to him," she offered and turned to deal with the interruption. "He's probably coming in this time."

Opening the door, she was greeted by the Father and the rest of the congregation behind him, not only the higher ranked members from before, but most of the town was drawn to the screaming.

"I am coming inside if we need to rip this door off its hinges," the kat told her evenly, this time wearing a light scimitar at his hip, though peacebound.

"You are expected," she looked down at him, using her height and mass advantage to good effect. "The potion has begun to work. His pain is the enchantment fighting the poison in him."

"Then at least let me in to ease that," he 'asked' her, taking his hand off the hilt of his blade. "We may have differences, but I have my own duty to Elar's children!"

She nodded and stepped to the side. "No more than two others with you. The room is crowded as it is."

"I'll come in alone," he agreed, stepping inside. "Though if you would leave the door open, the sunlight will help." He held his hands up, speaking the words to a prayer as he approached the Sheriff. He only distantly was aware that the door did remain wide open, and Felina remained by it, but to the side to avoid blocking any light. Longclaw had stopped screaming, but was still clearly in pain, sweating heavily. The Father's hands glowed with golden light as he finished his prayer, reaching out to lay them on the Sheriff's arm. As the light flowed into the patient's body, he began to relax, relief visible on his face.

"How soon will you know if the cure has worked?" He asked them.

"Within another quarter hour," Jake replied. "Once it's had time to work through his entire body."

The Father nodded. "The spell will hold longer than that."

"That'll probably help the cure work," Jake admitted. "The less he's stressed and fighting, the more his body can focus on healing."

"Aye, it's true enough," Whiteeye agreed as she regarded the gathering that should never be holding together this well. Priests of three Gods and a mortal authority, all working together. Even if it only lasted a few minutes, it was a moment worthy of remembering.

Silence held as the minutes ticked by, and Jake became ever more eager as they all saw signs of improvement.

As the quarter-hour passed, Jake pulled a length of bandage out, along with a slender dagger, making a small cut in Longclaw's arm and taking a sample of his blood before the kat could even object.

"Good color," he said, looking at the sample. "Not as dark, that's a good sign. How are you feeling?" He asked the Sheriff while the Father bandaged him quickly.

"Well, besides the cut in my arm, a Hell of a lot better... though I think I'm actually looking forward to the hangover, for once. Can't be worse than having my blood on fire."

"Not far off," Jake admitted, putting the small vial of blood into a stand. "Ah, can anybody call on some healing energy, without having to touch that?" He asked, looking between the three priests in the room. "I want to be certain, but I really don't want to be holding it, if it _didn't_ work."

"Gentle Response?" Felina suggested by near the door. "It prevents decay and conversion to undead. Every direct healing spell I know of requires touch." She looked pointedly at the Father, as healing magic was much more his field.

The kat shook his head. "She is correct. Healing spells require touch. However, I can call on Elar's power here; it would work on everyone in the room."

"I'd go for that then," Jake nodded. "It'll help the Sheriff recover too, and keep us from using a spell that could be used in the field."

"Very well," he nodded, praying and crossing his hands across his chest to touch the embroidered symbols on his scarf. The room seemed to brighten, and warmth washed over everybody inside, though the vial didn't react.

"Great, that's _exactly_ what I was hoping to see," Jake grinned. "It didn't blow up or boil, so it should be clean! We need to load up the bigger batch I have brewing, we can start with Miri and then look at how to treat the Heartwood."

"So once the hangover clears, I'm clear to get up?" Longclaw glanced around them.

"As long as you don't still feel weak or unsteady," Jake nodded. "The poison is gone. You just need to recover from the damage now."

"Drink this," Whiteeye pressed a glass of bright colored juice into his hand. "It will help ease the hangover."

"I'll just be glad to finally be up again," the Sheriff muttered. "Thank you for your help, Father."

"Yes, I hadn't accounted for just how severe the pain would be... unfortunately, I don't think it's going to be as easy for Miri and the Heartwood, but at least Miri's used to it. I don't think the other's going to be lucid enough to realize what's happening, at this rate," Jake admitted.

"Elar be with them both," the priest nodded. "I will return to the Temple, but please send for help if it is needed in the town or natural forest. The Faewood is beyond my reach, due to the Pact, but we will pray for those within who suffer."

"Let's go get loaded," Jake said, motioning for Dahnner and Felina to follow him as he collected his equipment and started to jog across town towards the brewery.

* * *

Meanwhile, within the Faewood, a young woman slowly walked along, dressed in the black robe of a member of the choir outside the village. She was singing softly, hands out and open to show she was unarmed, soft, sibilant words floating through the air around her in the Sylvan tongue, far more competently than the Sheriff spoke the language. She sang of peace, of quiet, of laying down the burdens of the day to rest.

She sang of death, as though a mother singing to her children, as she searched for the pool where the Heartwood was still roaming in its madness.

As she drew closer, the wasps buzzed angrily, recognizing a two-legged threat to their hives and homes. But before long, the incessant noise began to change, almost flowing into tune with her song. Even the Heartwood ceased its endless pacing, pausing where it stood and swaying along to the song.

The she-kat knelt at the top of the ridge surrounding the pool, sitting as though she was posed for a painting, _Lady Death Amidst the Forest_. She raised her voice, sending her song out farther, and it seemed that the air itself began to sing along with her to the accompaniment of wasp-wings and rustling branches. One of the insects, larger than she was, began to fly towards her, bobbing in the air in time with her song. It landed on the ground next to her, crawling up alongside her, probing at her with its antennae. She reached out gently, stroking its back, its iridescent wings folded along its body, continuing her song. The wasp seemed to content itself near her, settling down to be stroked by the madwoman. She nodded gently, her hand resting on the narrow joint of its deadly thorax and the rest of its body.

Then, with a tightening and twist of her hand, she broke the deadly weapon off, leaving the wasp to twitch where it lay, still under her spell. Rising from her place, she turned and walked away, still singing peacefully, carrying with her the prize her master sought.

* * *

"You've found a cure?" Cy'ril whinnied as he lunged to his hooves upon seeing Jake with the two Inquisitors he was used to seeing come with holy water.

"Yes," the lean kat grinned at him. "It worked on the sheriff, so this should work on any of the plant-based victims. I just used wood alcohol instead of grain."

"It's not an easy cure to suffer through," Felina warned more quietly. "The sheriff screamed a lot, and would have thrashed around if we hadn't bound him. The worst was over in a quarter hour though, and it does seem to be a true cure, not merely something to slow it down."

"Good," Cy'ril whinnied. "She's been dealing as well as she can, but she's been increasingly depressed. I've worried that she may try something foolish if I leave her."

"Well, the good news is that I don't have to make her actually swallow this stuff," Jake offered. "Though I'd rather warn her before I go dumping it on her roots. That would just be cruel."

"Dumping what?" Miri asked tiredly, looking down from between the black leaves that were beginning to come in on her tree thickly enough to hide her mangy, painfully scrawny body. She might have been able to help treat the rest of the grove, but it had taken its toll on her.

"The cure," Jake repeated. "It's mostly alcohol, real potent stuff, almost pure before I added the rest of the ingredients to it, and it's probably going to... okay, burn is probably the wrong word," he admitted, realizing that maybe he shouldn't use that turn of phrase with somebody whose soul was bound to a tree. "Have you ever had alcohol before?" He asked her.

"I'm fae," she managed the energy to giggle. "And tied to trees. Parts of me ferment," she pointed out.

"Right," he nodded. "Well, it's harsh alcohol, really unpleasant to drink and the part that cures makes the holy water you've been getting dosed with seem mild. It's going to hurt, a lot, but it'll be over with soon too, and you shouldn't need a second dose unless you're infected again." He pulled out the specially cured waterskin and held it up. "May I?"

"I'm staying up here this time," she said, but nodded all the same as she clung to her branch. "I think it hurts a little less this way."

"It probably does," he admitted. "Since you draw power from the tree. At least yours doesn't move," he added, starting the process of 'watering' the tree. Miri made a terrible face, hacking as she started to sense the liquor, and Cy'ril led the others away a short distance.

"Best to give her _some_ privacy. Do you have any idea how we'll treat the Heartwood? He _does_ move, after all," he pointed out to Felina and Dahnner.

"A sleep or paralysis spell, then pour it in on his roots?" Felina suggested. "Or in his mouth. I think I saw a mouth when we rushed in."

"He has one," Cy'ril confirmed. "Treants do, though they don't speak often. I wonder how it was that he was dosed in the first place," he admitted, wincing as the scream from Miri's tree carried over to them.

"Jake's original plan was to dump a huge amount upstream, deal with the polluted pond as well as the treant, but I pointed out that he'd likely poison the forest and town in the process and he changed his mind in a hurry," Dahnner explained. "I don't know the details, but apparently the alcohol he used is a nasty poison for most beings that aren't actually plants or made of fire."

"In his defense, the pool doesn't connect to the drinking water for the town, and most of the wildlife have learned to stay away," Cy'ril mused. "But it would be inefficient at best. A paralysis spell could work, but I don't know if you have any that would work on a tree."

"No, but if we don't have any other options, I can get a scroll sent out here within a day and try my luck with it," Dahnner shrugged. "Not my first choice though. Any scroll _that_ powerful, and I'd be reading it at arm's length with good thick gloves, just in case. There's the issue of the wasps too, if we _did_ paralyze it."

"Honestly, I think any plan that involves getting close to the treant involves disabling the wasps at a minimum," Felina said grimly. "Spend a few days at it, picking them off until the area is reasonably safe. Something I want to find out before we try is whether the environment will re-infect Miri after she's cured, or if her being cured will stabilize what's around her. I think it's safe to say that the Heartwood is the original source of infection, but he didn't transmit it directly to her. She was infected by something in the environment, likely the water."

"It's a possibility we have to consider," Dahnner agreed. "Wasn't Chance's girlfriend an archer? She might be helpful if we have to resort to that, though I'd rather have a unit of musketeers with squires. Of course, _that_ would require taking more time, and even with dumping as much holy water as we can into the Heartwood's area, I'd rather not wait. I don't suppose treants sleep on their own?" He asked Cy'ril.

"For months at a time, but not the way you or I would," the unicorn admitted. "Much like trees, the most they do is slow down at night, not actually sleep. It's part of why they are such excellent guardians. As I understand, this cure can be delivered like any poison could, yes? Such as with arrows made for the purpose?"

"That's my understanding. As long as enough liquid is administered, it should work," Felina nodded with a curious look.

"This would be the time to call in those favors with the sprites then," Cy'ril nodded. "They're swift enough that they should be able to avoid the wasps, and they're the finest archers you'll ever meet. If they can't take down the wasps, they will be able to pepper the Heartwood with enough arrows that the cure will work through them. Just have them use the cure, rather than their sleeping darts."

"That sounds like an excellent plan, Cy'ril," Felina voiced her approval. "Will they want to brew their own batch, or will Jake be making it?"

"What Jake has should work fine; it's unlikely that they'll want to try and make it themselves, given the case. Excuse me," he said, stepping back and away, making a series of gestures with his horn before seeming to leap into nothingness, presumably into the realm of the Fae.

"Where did Cy'ril go?" Jake asked as he brought a jug of the remedy with him from the tree, where the screaming had largely quieted.

"Into the Fae realm, I believe," Felina answered. "We have a plan to treat the treant. It seems he's owned favors by some sprites. Good arches, fast fliers. They can avoid the wasps and pepper the treant with enough cure-loaded arrows to deliver what's needed. You just need to make up enough cute and work out just how much they need to deliver."

"We have enough, and given he's a tree, I'd be surprised if there's a "too much" level," Jake pointed out. "The risky part will be the wasps, of course, and making sure that a drunk treant recovers properly... I don't suppose you have any idea how we're going to go about doing that, do you?"

"Check on him from a distance, assuming that the sprites don't kill all the wasps," she suggested. "Shouldn't it be reasonably obvious from his condition?"

"Oh, it should be," Jake agreed. "I'm mostly concerned about making sure that the wasps don't try to re-dose him or something. That, and that the antidote doesn't get out of hand. I mean... basically, it's breaking up his blood."

Felina winced. "Still, it's something we can watch at a distance, and hopefully we can pick off enough wasps that they aren't a threat. There are hunters we may be able to persuade to help shoot the wasps down."

"It's a possibility," Jake nodded. "If we could figure out how, I almost want to try and capture one of them for study back at the fort, but it's not worth the risks."

"Field notes will just have to do," Dahnner agreed. "Fortunately, we shouldn't have to deal with them again, with Narin dead."

Jake shook his head. "Once released, it takes a lot for such knowledge to be truly lost. I'd expect to see it again."

"I'm just hoping that since not even Narin knew it had worked, we might get lucky," Dahnner explained, before Cy'ril reappeared out of nowhere.

"They are coming," he told them. "Twenty mounted sprites, though their mistress would appreciate it if we could attempt to bring her a sample of the poison. She is curious if it might help them to better understand the undead. I made no promises to her, though I've no doubt her knights will be on the lookout for an opportunity of their own."

"And this is why knowledge rarely truly dies," Jake said dryly. "Given the number of wasps still there, I have little doubt that they'll manage it if we don't give them some."

Felina simply nodded her understanding and looked to Jake. "How much liquid do they need to get into him?"

"My initial estimate is at least a gallon," Jake explained. "That's the clay jug I was hauling with us, though I've got a couple more waiting, just in case. How big _are_ these sprites?" He asked Cy'ril.

"You'll meet them shortly; their arrows are much like your sewing needles, if that helps."

"They're going to be shooting for a long time," Jake frowned. "Still, probably our best bet."

"That was what we had agreed," Cy'ril nodded. Suddenly, the trees around them began to rustle, and a swarm of bats with glimmers of light above them descended from the leaves, swirling around the group before settling onto Cy'ril's back. Each of the large bats was expertly groomed, glossy and black, wearing a suit of the finest, lightly-silvered mail barding any of them had ever imagined, more like silver thread than actual chain links. Their riders were just as diminutive, each of them a tiny, dark-gray mouse-warrior clad in dark leather with a shortbow and fine silver rapier strapped to them for battle. The leader, distinguished by his tiny coat of arms, dismounted and saluted the larger warriors.

"Baba Yaga's Fifth Air Division reporting for battle under command of Forest Defender Cy'ril!" He squeaked.

"Good," Jake stepped forward and nodded to the sprite. "There are two goals for today. The wasps need to be disabled or killed, a task we will be helping with. Your force should focus on getting the full contents of this jug into the Heartwood." He uncorked the jug, holding it up for the tiny warrior to inspect. He took one whiff and leaned back, waving his hand in front of his face.

"Phew! What did that poor tree do to your mother, Commander?" He laughed, turning to his troops and squeaking a series of commands before turning back to the others.

"Do you know if these wasps will respond to poison properly? We've never fought undead wasps before, but Her Highness would like one for study."

"No, they won't," Jake warned him. "Not unless your poison works on corpses." Another series of squeaked commands, and three of the warriors started changing their positions, getting ready to take off in formation.

"Please try not to shoot anything the capture squadron is breaking off from the main team," the mouse told Jake. "They'll be using a special net, and it would be unfortunate if it were damaged."

"Understood," Jake nodded, along with Felina and Dahnner.

"We'll stick to the ones attacking," Felina added. "Just be warned, anything they sting is going to need a dose of a different antidote or it will die and become undead as well."

"I have several doses of that with me as well," Jake said. "A bat will need half a cap full. A sprite..." he did a bit of quick math in his head as he judged mass. "A third of that. So I'm carrying enough for anyone who gets stung to be cared for."

"Any of us who get stung deserve to," the leader scoffed. "The stingers are bigger than us! Can you pour some of the cure out, so we can load up before the battle begins?"

"Of course," Jake nodded, filling a small saucer and putting it down on Cy'ril's back so the mouse-like sprites could fill their arrows, slender, hollow slivers of some silvery metal. Once they were finished, the mice hopped back onto the backs of their mounts and saluted as a unit.

"Ready for battle, sirs!" The leader squeaked confidently.

"Then let's go," Felina nodded, turning the group towards the lake where the Heartwood lived. It wasn't long before they heard the buzzing of the wasps.

"Where would be a good place to have the bowl of the cure out, so you can reload?" Jake asked as they came up to the ridge that gave some protection as well as a view of the battleground.

"I'd suggest back here, where we set up last time," Dahnner piped up. "Slightly shielded, and I can set up to help keep up morale," he explained, settling down and pulling out his lute. "Something with a good bite to it for this, I think."

"Agreed," the sprite leader squeaked as Jake began pulling out hand-sized spheres, throwing sticks and all manner of objects that made both his fellows and Cy'ril uneasy.

"Explosives, holy water smoke shield, more explosives," Cy'ril explained when the sprite looked at him. "And that... what is that, Jake?"

"Mmm? Oh, they're hollow throwing darts. I'm going to try and hit one of the wasps with one if it comes close enough," the kat explained.

"Any particular reason?" Dahnner asked the question they were all half-dreading the answer to, not sure if Jake was trying for additional samples, or had something else in mind.

"I want to see if the cure will work on something that far gone," Jake shrugged. "It's a long shot, but they're here."

"Okay, that makes sense," Dahnner nodded. "Just wanted to check, since I don't want any more of these samples around than we have to have. It's risky, especially until we get the samples to the fort. All right then, take up positions and try to hold your explosives to clear a path for the sprites before they move in, and to cover their retreat. Hard to keep them out of the blast zone, and I don't want them getting hurt any more than they do."

Jake nodded and picked up the first of two tube explosive charges, activated it and through with his entire body to lob it as far as he could. When it landed, it didn't even warrant notice by the wasps, as it did nothing for a few seconds.

"Looks like that one was a dud," Dahnner observed.

"Wait for it," Jake cautioned him, activating the second one and hurling it much the way he'd done the first. The second tube was in the air when the first one split apart and both ends went flying in opposite directions before exploding.

There was no ignoring the blast this time, and the swarm descended from the trees to start towards them. With as mighty a bellow as their commander could squeak, the sprites were off as well, riding into the fray on their bats. The first wave opened fire on one of the wasps, seemingly to no effect at first, before its lower body suddenly burst open from the pressure of the blessed liquid released into their undead innards and starting to boil away at them.

"Impressive," Dahnner admitted, starting to play his lute from behind the hill. As he did, all near him could feel a surge of courage, his magic driving them past their normal limits as he found the rhythm of the action and almost seemed to start conducting it. The three bats with the net strung between them dropped into formation, spreading their enchanted webbing and flying straight at one of the wasps, trapping it and beginning it haul it bodily away from the fight, its wings fouled up by the gossamer-thin barrier holding it.

As the sprites picked off another giant wasp with their darts, Felina focused on shooting them with her pistols, using basic lead balls to shatter the fragile exoskeletons. As the sprites came back in mass to fill more darts, Jazz threw more explosives to destroy in mass.

To the side, Cy'ril stomped and whinnied, seeking to see anything the engaged warriors didn't. It didn't settle well with him to stay out of the fray, especially with the music playing, but he recognized that he would be more hindrance than help at this point if he'd gone out.

Before long, the swarm had begun to thin out, leaving the sprites with more opportunities to come in near the Heartwood and begin peppering it with the cure. It thrashed out at them, bellowing at the pain of the cure and its own rage at being attacked again. Fortunately, it was in no shape to wield its full powers.

"Think you and Cy'ril could get close enough to toss a bag in there?" Jake asked Felina, dumping out his satchel and filling it with the flasks of cure he'd brought along, saving two for emergencies. "Think we can speed this up if we could get some more into him quicker."

"I can," the unicorn answered, eager for something to do other than watch.

Felina nodded. "But how can they access it? They're too small to open those, or balance the flasks so it doesn't all spill out."

"You're not taking it in for the sprites," Jake pointed out, cinching the satchel and passing it to her. "You're shoving it down the Heartwood's throat, now that it's safe enough to try it."

"Will do," she nodded and took the satchel, then glanced at Cy'ril. "Will it crush the flasks if I get this in its mouth?"

"I have to think they'll get broken somehow," he told her. "Can't choke on them, and he'd have a hard time reaching in to pull them out, but I usually don't ask what happens when trees swallow. Climb on!"

She nodded and made an easy leap up to settle on his bare back. One hand twisted carefully in his mane, the other on the satchel, and they were off, up one side of the rise and down the next. One of the remaining wasps headed straight for her, before bursting under a hail of needles from the sprites. Another got within fifteen feet before Felina had drawn her pistol, only to be consumed with flames as the dragon's breath cartridge inside erupted and sprayed its incendiary mix of oil and white phosphorous over everything unfortunate enough to be in front of the barrel. The Heartwood reared back from the flames, distracted from its pain by the threat of fire, and opened its maw wide with a roar of enraged terror.

Seeing her opportunity, Felina swung the satchel in her other hand, hearing the fragile bottles crack against each other before she nudged Cy'ril's side lightly with a heel to indicate a turn. The unicorn caught her meaning, shifting his weight to give her a clean shot, and the satchel soared through the air, crashing against the back of the Heartwood's 'throat.'

The treant began to thrash wildly as the cure began to soak in, the wasps going as mad as their master, turning on each other as much as the sprites, some even turning to try stinging the Heartwood itself, though the sprites made short work of taking them down. Another explosion rocked the clearing as Jake threw one more of his bombs to clear a path out for Cy'ril and Felina, so they could reach relative safety again.

She slid off him as soon as they came to a stop behind the ridge and she turned to focus on the treat that was thrashing and bellowing.

"Is it worse because he's more infected, or because he doesn't know what's going on?" she asked, unsettled by the visual.

"Both, I imagine," Jake winced. "Most of the sprites have shifted to picking off the wasps to keep them from escaping, I think. At this point, that's more important... we can always come back to re-dose the Heartwood once they're down. Narin was one sick kat, coming up with something like this."

"Is there _anything_ we hunt that isn't seriously sick?" Felina snorted, her tone grim as another unearthly scream tore through the forest. She rubbed her forehead. "Do I even want to know how much holy liquid we're going to need to cure the rest of the forest?"

"I've already got it brewing," Jake reassured her. "I'll have to stay here to help implement it for a while, see if anything resists it, but if we've got a treant helping us it'll be a lot easier. Especially since most of what's infected doesn't have nerves, at this point... plants and stuff. The animals are probably a lost cause, I suspect the cure would kill most of the ones who aren't already gone."

"Animals will reinhabit the area quickly once the poison is gone," Cy'ril said with certainty, his coat shivering at the treant's screams. "The surrounding woods are healthy and full of life eager to live protected."

"I've no doubt," Dahnner agreed, stilling the strings of his lute as the Heartwood 'slumped,' exhausted by its struggles. "Felina, come with me? I'm going to try some regular healing magic, see how he responds. I think we've got enough cover to approach safely."

She nodded and stood, mace at the ready but hoping not to need it as she followed him down towards the lake.

The stillness as they went down was almost eerie, after having gotten used to the constant background noise of the forest. She could feel the necromantic energies that had seeped into the earth, and knew that it would be some time before the forest was well again, even with Jake's cure doing what it could to help. As they reached the fallen Heartwood, it rustled slightly, trying to raise a branch.

"No more," it begged in a voice like a board being sawed in half. "No more."

"I'm here to help you," Dahnner promised gently, before switching to the language the unicorns had used when they'd first met and saying something Felina couldn't even begin to understand. Whatever it was, the Heartwood lowered its 'arm,' leaving Dahnner to do what he wanted, and the kantin responded with a soothing song, hands glowing with silver, healing light as he summoned a healing spell.

As the glow began to fade, the Heartwood sagged even further, yet even Felina could see it was in relief. "I think it worked. Heartwood, do you know if the poison in the lake and ground here will hurt you if you stay?"

"Best to move, to be safe," he admitted. "Can't be sure, and don't want to go through that again." Two of the nearby oaks uprooted themselves, moving to help the Heartwood move out of the depression. "Thank you, for your help."

"A pleasure to offer it, Sir," the lead sprite said, descending from its branches. "My unit will find a clearing that's not infected for you to rest in, before we return home!"

"We are glad we were able to help," Felina said, watching the trees and treant move. "At least one of us will remain in the area to brew more of the cure until we are sure the poison has all been neutralized."

"I will send word if I learn of infected groves," the treant answered before they fell silent. The Inquisitors to watching, the treant simply focusing on the effort to move and the sprites seeking a new grove for him. Before long, the trio turned to go back into town, hoping that they would soon hear nothing more of Narin's plan.

* * *

It was almost three months before Felina left, well after Jake and Dahnner had returned home to Moon Bay. As her mission, it was also her duty to stick around until it was reasonably clear that things were settled and in this case, that the poison was completely gone. For once, she really didn't mind. The town was friendly, the food was good and she hadn't had a good rest in a long time.

As she finished gearing up Thunderclap for a long travel, she could feel the gelding's eagerness to move on. Like her, he'd enjoyed the break, the chance to run free and laze about, but he'd been bred and trained for a life on the road and he was bored of the same walls, fields and fodder, no matter how nice it was. She smiled and patted his neck before continuing her work of loading carefully selected and packed supplies.

"Hey, Felina!" A familiar voice called out from the stable's entrance.

"Hello Chance," she greeted him with a glance and took in his light armor, travel cloak and that he held the reins of a chestnut roan horse that she'd seen about town many times under a messenger.

"Any plans for where you're heading next?" The tabby asked her, taking out a carrot to bribe the horse who was clearly still getting used to him. "Thinking it might be a good idea to get back on the road myself."

"Sugarville, unless something comes up on the way," she told him easily. "Unless I have a mission, travel plans are fairly loose. It's often as little organized as 'heading north,' but you're welcome to come along. I know you have the spirit and skill to handle yourself in a fight if ones comes along."

"Sounds fine by me," Chance chuckled. "It's about all I've done myself, once I escaped. Besides... I need to go through a few more fights, I think, before I go back. You seem like the sort to get herself in enough trouble that I'll be able to get some good practice," he joked.

"It is my job," she gave him a wry smile and lead Thunderclap from the stall. "How many days rations do you have?"

"Best part of a week, but I'm a good hunter. How hard are you planning to ride?" Chance asked her. "An hour or two a day and I ought to be able to keep us both fed, as long as we're not riding through some wasteland."

"Not hard at all. We can stop long enough to properly prepare it if you catch something bigger than a meal for two," Felina agreed easily before swinging up on Thunderclap and relaxed in the saddle. "Half the job is _looking_ , and not just in towns. We don't need someone to complain or ask for help to hunt any undead we see signs of."

"Not many people who'd object to taking them out, I imagine," Chance chuckled, opening the stall and leading his new mount out, climbing up a bit more awkwardly than Felina had. "Might take a bit before I'm used to riding again," he admitted, "but I won't slow you down. Any other business to wrap up before we get going?" He asked her, settling into the saddle and making sure he hadn't lost the flask strapped to his hip.

"I'm ready to ride if you are," she nodded and clicked at Thunderclap to start walking, the reins loose. She waited until they were outside the village to speak again. "If you're sore tonight, let me know. There are half a dozen herbal remedies for muscle aches that won't impair your awareness or reactions."

"I should be fine," he reassured her. "Might take a day or two to get used to it again, but it can't be worse than swinging an ax all day. At least those creepy singers moved on after the forest was starting to clean up. Now _them_ , I wouldn't want to go traveling with."

"Agreed," Felina's fur rippled in distaste. "That is a down side to this job. You will meet up with them from time to time, as disasters draw them, and disasters often create undead that draw in Inquisitors."

"Yeah, but there's a difference between showing up afterwards to clean up and help people, and hunting them down in advance," Chance muttered as they rode towards the walls of the city. "I've heard they cause them sometimes, too."

"While I wouldn't be surprised, the Order has never found any proof," Felina said a bit firmly. "We do look for it. So far they've all come up clean."

"Well, good to hear, but I'll still keep an eye out myself," Chance shrugged. "If there's anything I've learned as a miner, mountaineer, soldier, _and_ woodsman, it's that you always want to pay attention to the guy who _wants_ to get caught in a cave in, to make sure you're not tied to him when he does."

"Always good advice," Felina nodded. She tensed suddenly, eyes scanning the forest ahead of them. "Company," she told Chance quietly.

"This close to town, it's not going to be somebody who has bad intentions," Chance chuckled slightly at Felina's concern, though he did take a look over at the nearby woods and hills, scanning the edge of it for signs of who it might be. "Probably just one of the hunters, or some of the kits sneaking out to play."

"Someone more unusual," she said as she relaxed a bit, her gaze focused on a spot. Chance soon picked up the shinning silver mane and softly glowing silvery horn that stood out from Cy'ril's glossy black pelt. The unicorn waited for them to come nearly abreast of him, then stepped out onto the trail. "Hello Cy'ril," Felina greeted him warmly. "Is all still well in the forest?"

"As well as can be expected, given the situation," Cy'ril nodded. "Not everything is quite back to normal, and I doubt it ever will be, but most of the actual damage is over with. Baba Yaga's sprites have tracked down any other infected animals and brought them down, but the woodsmen will have new stories of wisps for generations, with the King of Lantern's newfound interest in the region. However, this gives my kin some relief from having to watch over the forest quite so closely."

"I'd call that good news, overall," Felina nodded as Thunderclap reached out to sniff the unicorn in greeting. "What brings you here to us?"

"In part, to let you know that the forest will be well protected," he said, tolerating the curious horses. "Also, I believe that you had been planning to leave today, and it seems that I was right. I was hoping that you would be interested in a traveling companion, at least for a time. Recent events have left us with little choice but to learn more about the undead, and your order seems to be an excellent source of opportunity to do so."

Felina smiled as her tail twitched at the thrill of the offer. "I would welcome your company. We are headed to Sugarville, and plan to hunt some of our meals on the way. What do unicorns eat?"

"Most anything," he said easily, falling in alongside them. "And I can help with the hunt as well. My people eat meat far more often than your usual mounts, though only the most degenerate hunt mortals, whatever your legends might say. Frankly, like most predators, you're supposed to taste horrible."

"I expect most do," Felina couldn't help but make a face as all three continued down the road. "But I'm a little more biased than most given what I think of when it comes to things that eat people. As for legends, I don't think you'll need to worry about it much. You're too pretty to be taken as the killer kind."

"Thank you... I think," Cy'ril responded. "What can you tell us about this Sugarville we're headed for?" 

**Author's Note:**

> Elvish from the English-> Elvish Dictionary at <http://www.alphadictionary.com/directory/Languages/Artificial/Tolkien_Languages/>
> 
> Draconic translations entirely from [http://draconic.twilightrealm.com](http://draconic.twilightrealm.com/)
> 
> Calendar:  Lunar calendar, based on the primary moon. 32 day months of 8 weeks each, the first day of the full moon marking the start of each month, each week marked by the beginning of the next lunar phase.
> 
> Days of the Week (Correspond to broad stages of development):  
> Farash (Childhood)  
> Qilash (Adolescence)  
> Junash (Adulthood)  
> Torash (Old age)


End file.
